PEEPS  AT 
PEOPLE 

Being  Certain  Papers 
from  the  Writings  of 
ANNE  WARRINGTON 

WITHERUP.    Collected  by 

JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS 

With   Illustrations   by 

EDWARD     PENFIELD 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

HARPER   &   BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 

1899 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


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NEW   YORK   AND   LONDON: 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS. 


Copyright,  1898,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 


All  rights  reserved. 


CONTENTS 


NANBEN 

MH.  HALL  CAIKE.     . 
EMPEUOK  WILLIAM 
MR.  ALFRED  AUSTIN 
ANDREW  LANQ 


PAGE 


ZOLA    ...    .....    ......    75 

SIR  HENRY  IRVING  ....    .....    ' 

IAN  MACLAREN     .......    ...  107 

RUDYARD  KIPLING   .........  123 

THE  DE  RESZKES.     .    .    .......  139 

HENRYK  SIENKIKWICZ  ........  155 

GENERAL  WEYLER  .........  I71 


340113 


13  W 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"COME  RIGHT   UP  " Frontispiece 

"I  BOARDED  A  PJINE  RJAFT".      .      .  Facing  p.      6 

"  '  MR.  NANSEN  ?'    SAID  I  "      .... 

"DINED  WITH  THE  CABINET".      .      .  12 

"'IS     THIS     GLOOMSTER     ABBEY?'     I 

.,  <«  -10 

ASKED        

«  orv 

HE  APPEARED  ! 

IN  THE  WORKSHOP 

EXAMINING  HIMSELF 

THE  IMPERIAL  BAND 

"'WE  ARE  HAVING  OUR  PORTRAITS 
PAINTED'"       

"  '  A  BEAUTIFUL  WORKSHOP,'  SAID  I  "  50 
CONSULTING  HIS  CHINOMETER  ...  54 
TRADE  MARK.      NONE  GENUINE  WITH 
OUT  IT 60 

IN  THE  MEREDITH  SHOP 66 

EDITING  "HERRICK" 68 

SEEKING  ZOLA 76 

CONSULTING  "LA  PATRIE "  .      ...  "  78 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

'"SAVE  ME!'  SHE  CRIED"   ....  Facing  p.   SO 

"I  SAT  QUIETLY  IN  THE  BOX "    .    .  "  94 
"  'SEND  THE  PROPERTY-MAN  HERE  !' 

HE  CRIED" "  98 

"  '  IT  WAS  ALL  ARRANGED  BEFORE 
HAND,  MISS'" "  102 

DRESSED  FOR  THE  PART "110 

THE  PURSUIT .  "  112 

AT  HOME "  116 

INTERCEPTED  THE  STEAMER      .      .      .    •  "  124 

ON  THE  LANYARD  DECK "  126 

' '  HE  WAS  ERECTING  A  GRAND-STAND  "  "  134 

IT  WAS  A  SUPERB  BUILDING     ...  "  142 

READY  FOR  THE   STORM "  146 

MELBA,  THE   DAIRY-MAID        "  '  148 

ASKED   A  POLICEMAN "  160 

THE   AUTHOR  IN  HIS  STUDY.      ...  "  162 

"  ONE  MUST  BE  INTRODUCED ".      .      .  "  166 
"A    RATHER    STUNNING    BANDERILLO 

OPENED  THE  DOOR" "  172 

IN   HIDING "  174 

"I    AM   TOO    OLD  A   SPANIARD   TO    BE 

CAUGHT  LIKE  THAT"  "  178 


PEEPS   AT   PEOPLE 


NANSEN 


NANSEN 


IT  was  in  the  early  part  of  February 
last  that,  acting  under  instructions  from 
headquarters,  I  set  forth  from  my  office 
in  London  upon  my  pilgrimage  to  the 
shrines  of  the  world's  illustrious.  Read 
ers  everywhere  are  interested  in  the  home 
life  of  men  who  have  made  themselves 
factors  in  art,  science,  letters,  and  history, 
and  to  these  people  I  was  commissioned 
to  go.  But  one  restriction  was  placed 
upon  me  in  the  pursuit  of  the  golden 
Notoriety,  and  that  was  that  I  should 
spare  no  expense  whatever  to  attain  my 
ends.  At  first  this  was  embarrassing. 
Wealth  suddenly  acquired  always  is.  But 
in  time  I  overcame  such  difficulties  as 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

beset  me,  and  soon  learned  to  spend  thou 
sands  of  dollars  with  comparative  ease. 

And  first  of  all  I  decided  to  visit  Nan- 
sen.  To  see  him  at  home,  if  by  any  pos 
sibility  Nansen  could  be  at  home  any 
where,  would  enable  me  to  open  my  series 
interestingly.  I  remembered  distinctly 
that  upon  his  return  from  the  North  Pole 
he  had  found  my  own  people  too  cold  for 
comfort.  I  called  to  mind  that,  having 
travelled  for  months  seeking  the  Pole,  he 
had  accused  my  fellow-countrymen  of 
coming  to  see  him  out  of  "mere  curios 
ity,"  and  I  recalled  at  the  same  time  that 
with  remarkable  originality  he  had  de 
clared  that  we  heated  our  railway  trains 
to  an  extent  which  suggested  his  future 
rather  than  his  past.  Wherefore  I  de 
cided  to  visit  Nansen  to  hear  what  else  he 
might  have  to  say,  while  some  of  the  in 
cidents  of  his  visit  were  fresh  in  our 
minds. 

The  next  thing  to  discover,  the  deci 
sion  having  been  reached,  was  as  to  Nan- 
sen's  whereabouts.  Nobody  in  London 
4 


X  A  N  S  E  N 

seemed  to  know  exactly  where  he  might 
be  found.  I  asked  the  manager  of  the 
house  in  which  I  dwelt,  and  he  hadn't 
an  idea — he  never  had,  for  that  matter. 
Then  I  asked  a  policeman,  and  he  said  he 
thought  he  was  dancing  at  the  Empire, 
but  he  wasn't  sure.  Next  I  sought  his 
publishers  and  asked  for  his  banker's 
address.  The  reply  included  every  bank 
in  London,  with  several  trust  companies 
in  France  and  Spain.  To  my  regret,  I 
learned  that  we  Americans  hold  none  of 
his  surplus. 

"But  where  do  you  send  his  letters  ?" 
I  demanded  of  his  publisher,  in  despair. 

"  Dr.  Nansen  has  authorized  us  to  de 
stroy  them  unopened,"  was  the  reply. 
"They  contain  nothing  but  requests  for 
his  autograph." 

"But  your  letters  to  him  containing 
his  royalties — where  do  they  go  ?"  I  de 
manded. 

"We  address  them  to  him  in  our  own 
care,"  was  the  answer. 

"And  then?"  I  queried. 
5 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"According  to  his  instructions,  they 
are  destroyed  unopened,"  said  the  pub 
lisher,  twisting  his  thumbs  meditatively. 

It  seemed  hopeless. 

Suddenly  an  idea  flashed  across  my 
mind.  I  will  go,  I  thought,  to  the  cold 
est  railway  station  in  London  and  ask  for 
a  ticket  for  Nansen.  A  man  so  fastidious 
as  he  is  in  the  matter  of  temperature,  I 
reasoned,  cannot  have  left  London  at  any 
one  of  their  moderately  warm  stations. 
Where  the  temperature  is  most  frigid, 
there  Nansen  must  have  gone  when  leav 
ing,  he  is  such  a  stickler  for  temperature. 
Wherefore  I  went  to  the  Waterloo  Station 
— it  is  the  coldest  railway  station  I  know 
— and  I  asked  the  agent  for  a  ticket  for 
Nansen. 

He  seemed  nonplussed  for  a  moment, 
and,  to  cover  his  embarrassment,  asked  : 

"  Second  or  third  class  ?" 

"First,"  said  I,  putting  down  a  five- 
pound  note. 

(l  Certainly,"  said  he,  handing  me  a 
ticket  to  Southampton.  "Do  you  think 
6 


BOARDED    A    PJINE    KJAFT 


NANSEN 

you  people  in  the  States  will  really  have 
war  with  Spain  ?" 

I  will  not  dilate  upon  this  incident. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  ticket  man  sent 
me  to  Southampton,  where,  he  said,  I'd 
be  most  likely  to  find  a  boat  that  would 
carry  me  to  Xansen.  And  he  was  right. 
I  reached  Sjwjcktcwjch  within  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  holding,  as  I  did,  letters 
of  introduction  from  President  McKin- 
ley  and  her  Majesty  Queen  Victoria,  ffom 
Richard  Croker  and  Major  Pond,  Mr. 
Nansen  consented  to  receive  me. 

He  lived  in  an  Esquimau  hut  on  an 
ice-floe  which  was  passing  the  winter 
in  the  far-famed  Maelstrom.  How  I 
reached  it  Heaven  only  knows.  I  frankly 
confess  that  I  do  not.  I  only  know  that 
under  the  guidance  of  Svenskjold  Bjon- 
stjon  I  boarded  a  plain  pjine  rjaft,  such 
as  the  Norwegians  use,  and  was  pjaddjled 
out  into  the  seething  whirlpool,  in  the 
midst  of  which  was  Nansen's  more  or  less 
portable  cottage. 

When  I  recovered  I  found  myself  seated 
7 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

inside  the  cottage,  which,  like  everything 
else  in  the  Maelstrom,  was  waltzing  about 
as  if  at  a  military  ball  or  AVestchester 
County  dance. 

"Well/7  said  my  host,  looking  at  me 
coldly.  "You  are  here.  ITJiy  are  you  here?" 

"Mr.  Xansen?"  said  I. 

"The  very  same,"  said  he,  taking  an 
icicle  out  of  his  vest  pocket  and  biting 
off  the  end  of  it. 

"  The  Polar  Explorer  ?"  I  added. 

' *  There  is  but  one  Xansen,"  said  he, 
brushing  the  rime  from  his  eyebrows. 
"  Why  ask  foolish  questions  ?  If  I  am 
Xansen,  then  it  goes  without  saying  that 
I  am  the  Polar  Explorer." 

"'Excuse  me,"  I  replied.  "I  merely 
wished  to  know."  And  then  I  took  a  one- 
dollar  bill  from  my  purse.  "'Here,  Mr. 
Xansen,  is  my  dollar.  That  is,  I  under 
stand,  the  regular  fee  for  seeing  you.  I 
should  like  now  to  converse  with  you. 
What  is  your  price  per  word  ?" 

"Have  you  spoken  to  my  agents?"  he 
asked. 

8 


NANSEN 

"No,"  said  I. 

"Then  it  will  only  cost  you  $160  a 
word.  Had  you  arranged  through  them, 
I  should  have  had  to  charge  you  $200. 
You  see,"  he  added,  apologetically,  "I 
have  to  pay  them  a  commission  of  twenty 
per  cent." 

"I  understand  that,"  said  I.  "I  have 
given  public  readings  myself,  and  after 
paying  the  agent's  commission  and  travel 
ling  expenses  I  have  invariably  been  com 
pelled  to  go  back  and  live  with  my  mother 
for  six  months." 

"  Miss  Witherup,"  said  Nansen,  rising, 
"you  did  not  intend  to  do  it,  and  I 
therefore  forgive  you,  but  for  the  moment 
you  have  made  me  feel  warmly  towards 
you.  Please  do  not  do  it  again.  Frigidity 
is  necessary  to  my  business.  What  can  I 
do  for  you  ?" 

"Talk  to  me,"  said  I. 

He  immediately  froze  up  again. 
"What  about  ?"  said  he.  "The  Pole  ?" 

"  No,"  said  I.     "  About  America." 

"  I  cannot !"  he  cried,  despairingly. 
9 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"I  do  not  wish  to  dwell  upon  my  suffer 
ings.  If  I  told  about  my  American  ex 
perience,  people  would  not  believe ;  they 
would  rank  me  with  Munchausen,  my 
sufferings  were  so  intense.  Let  me  tell 
of  how  I  lived  on  Esquimau  dog-chops 
and  ice-cream  for  nineteen  weeks/' 

"Pardon  me,  Mr.  Nansen,"  said  I, 
"but  I  can't  do  that.  We  Americans 
know  all  about  the  North  Pole.  Few  of 
us,  on  the  other  hand,  know  anything 
about  America,  and  we  wish  to  be  enlight 
ened.  What  did  you  think  of  Chicago  ?" 

"  Chicago  ?  IF  in  !  Let  me  see,"  said 
Nansen,  tapping  his  forehead  gently  with 
an  ice-pick.  "  Chicago !  Oh  yes,  I  re 
member  ;  it  was  a  charmingly  cold  city, 
full  of  trolley-cars,  and  having  a  newly 
acquired  subway  and  a  public  library.  I 
found  it  a  beautiful  city,  madam,  and  the 
view  from  the  Bunker  Hill  Statue  of 
Liberty  was  superb,  looking  down  over 
Blackwell's  Island  through  the  Golden 
Gate  out  into  the  vast,  trackless  waste  of 
Lake  Superior.  Yes,  I  thought  well  of 
10 


NANSEN 

it.     If  I  remember  rightly,  we   took  in 
$18G9  at  the  door." 

I  was  surprised  at  his  command  of  de 
tails,  and  resolved  further  to  test  his 
memory. 

"And  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Nansen  ?" 
"A  superb  city,  considering  its  re 
cency,  as  you  say  in  English.  I  met 
many  delightful  people  there.  Senator 
Tom  Reed  received  me  at  his  palace  on 
Euclid  Avenue,  if  I  remember  the  street 
aright;  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  Mr. 
McKinley,  gave  me  a  dinner,  at  which  I 
sat  down  with  Mr.  Cleveland  and  Mr. 
Van  Wyck,  and  Mr.  Bryan  and  Mr.  Pulit 
zer,  and  other  members  of  his  cabinet ; 
and  in  my  leisure  hours  I  found  the  thea 
tres  of  Philadelphia  most  pleasing,  with 
Mr.  Jefferson  singing  his  nigger  songs, 
Mr.  Mansfield  in  his  inimitable  skirt- 
dancing,  and,  best  of  all,  Mr.  Daly's 
Shakespearian  revivals  of  '  Hamlet '  and 
'  Othello/  with  Miss  Rehan  in  the  title- 
roles.  Oh  yes,  Miss  Witherdown — 
"Witherup!"  I  snapped,  coldly. 
11 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"Excuse  me,  Witherup,"  said  the  great 
explorer.  "Oh  yes,  Miss  Witherup,  I 
found  America  a  most  delightful  coun 
try,  especially  your  capital  city  of  Phila 
delphia." 

"Herr  Nansen,"  said  I,  "are  you  as 
accurate  in  your  observations  of  the  North 
Pole  as  in  your  notes  of  the  States,  as  ex 
pressed  to  me  ?" 

"Neither  more  nor  less  so,"  said  he, 
somewhat  uneasily,  I  thought. 

"But  you  have  drawn  a  most  delightful 
picture  of  the  States,"  said  I.  "  I  think 
all  Americans  will  be  pleased  by  your 
reference  to  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument 
at  Chicago,  and  Mayor  McKinley's  cabi 
net  at  Philadelphia.  On  the  other  hand, 
you  spoke  of  intense  suffering  while  with 
us." 

"Yes,"  said  he,  "I  did — because  I  suf 
fered.  Have  you  ever  travelled  in  your 
own  country,  madam  ?" 

"  I  am  an  American,"  said  I.  "  There 
fore  when  I  travel  I  travel  abroad." 

"Then  you  do  not  know  of  the  pri- 
12 


NANSEX 

vations  of  American  travel/'  he  cried. 
"Consider  me,  Nansen,  compelled,  after 
the  delightful  discomfort  of  the  Pram,  to 
have  to  endure  the  horrid  excellence  of 
your  Pullman  service.  Consider  me, 
Nansen,  after  having  subsisted  on  dogs 
and  kerosene  oil  for  months,  having  to  eat 
a  breakfast  costing  a  dollar  at  one  of  your 
American  hotels,  consisting  of  porridge, 
broiled  chicken,  deviled  kidney,  four 
kinds  of  potatoes,  eggs  in  every  style, 
real  coffee,  and  buckwheat  cakes !  Con 
sider  me — " 

"  Nansen  ?"  I  inquired. 

"Yes,  Nansen,"  said  he.  "Consider 
me,  Nansen,  used  to  the  cold  of  the  Arctic 
regions,  the  Arctic  perils,  having  to  wake 
up  every  morning  in  an  American  hotel 
or  an  American  parlor-car,  warm,  without 
peril,  comfortable,  without  any  thing  what 
soever  to  growl  about" 

"It  must  have  been  devilish,"  said  I. 

"  It  was,"  said  he. 

"Well,  Mr.  Nansen,"  I  put  in,  rising, 
"you  can  stand  it.  You  are  cold  enough 
13 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

to  stay  in  Hades  for  forty-seven  years 
without  losing  your  outside  garments. 
How  much  do  I  owe  you  ?" 

"  Fifteen  thousand  dollars,  please,"  said 
he. 

I  gave  him  the  money  and  swam  away. 

"  Good-bye,"  he  cried,  as  I  reached  the 
outer  edge  of  the  Maelstrom.  "  I  hope, 
next  time  I  go  to  America,  that  I  shall 
meet  you." 

"Many  thanks,"  said  I.  "When  do 
you  expect  to  come  ?" 

" Never,"  he  replied,  "Deo  volente  !" 

Charming  chap,  that  Nansen.  So  warm, 
you  know. 


MR.  HALL  CAINE 


ME.  HALL  CAINE 


I  DO  not  know  why  it  should  have  hap 
pened  so,  but  it  did  happen  that  after  my 
interview  with  Xansen  I  felt  gloomy  in 
my  soul,  and  hence  naturally  sought  con 
genial  company.  My  first  inclination  was 
to  run  down  to  Greece  and  take  luncheon 
with  King  George,  but  when  I  came  to 
look  over  my  languages,  the  only  bit  of 
Greek  I  could  speak  fluently  turned  out 
to  be  hoi  polloi,  and  from  private  advices 
I  gather  that  that  is  the  only  bit  of 
Greek  that  his  honor  the  King  has  no 
use  for.  Therefore  I  bought  a  ticket 
straight  through  to  Gloomster  Abbey,  Isle 
of  Man — the  residence  of  Hall  Cainc. 

Appropriately  enough,  it  was  midnight 
B  17 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

when  I  arrived.  It  was  a  moonlight  night, 
but  there  were  a  dozen  clouds  on  the  hori 
zon  and  directly  in  the  wake  of  the  moon's 
rays,  so  that  all  was  dark.  From  the  ab 
bey  itself  no  single  ray  of  light  gleamed, 
and  all  was  still,  save  the  croaking  of  the 
tree  -  toads  in  the  moat,  and  the  crickets 
on  the  roof  of  the  parapet. 

Any  one  else  would  have  been  chilled 
to  the  marrow  ;  but  I,  having  visited  Nan- 
sen,  had  to  use  a  fan  to  overcome  the  ex 
treme  cordiality  of  the  scene.  With  the 
thermometer  at  32°  I  nearly  swooned  with 
the  heat. 

"  Is  this  Gloomster  Abbey  ?"  I  asked  of 
my  hackman. 

"Yes,"  said  he  ;  "and,  for  Humanity's 
sake,  pay  your  fare  and  let  me  go.  I  am 
the  father  of  seven  orphans,  and  the  hus 
band  of  their  widowed  mother.  If  I  stay 
here  ten  minutes  I'll  die,  and  my  wife  will 
marry  again,  Heaven  help  her  I" 

I  paid  him  £6  10s.  6d.  and  let  him  go. 
He  was  nothing  to  me,  but  his  family  had 
my  sympathy. 

18 


MR.    HALL    CAINE 

Then  I  knocked  on  the  portcullis  with 
all  my  might,  and  was  gratified  to  find 
that,  like  a  well  -  regulated  portcullis,  it 
fell,  and  with  a  loud  noise  withal. 

An  intense  silence  intervened,  and  then 
out  of  the  blackness  of  the  blue  above  me 
there  came  a  voice  with  a  reddish  tinge 
to  it. 

" Who's  there?"  said  tho  voice.  "11 
you  are  a  burglar,  come  in  and  rob.  If 
you  are  a  friend,  wait  a  minute.  If  you 
are  an  interviewer  from  an  American 
Sunday  newspaper,  accept  my  apologies 
for  keeping  you  waiting,  turn  the  knob, 
and  walk  in.  I'll  be  down  as  soon  as  I 
can  get  there." 

It  was  Hall  Caine  himself  who  spoke. 

I  turned  the  knob  and  walked  in.  All 
was  still,  dark,  and  cold,  but  I  did  not 
mind,  for  it  fitted  into  my  mood  exactly. 

In  the  darkness  of  the  corridor  within 
I  barked  what  if  I  were  a  man  I  should 
call  my  shins.  As  it  happened,  being  a 
woman,  I  merely  bruised  my  ankles,  when 
he  appeared — Hall  Caine  himself.  There 
19 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

was  no  gas-light,  no  electric  light.  Noth 
ing  but  the  blackness  of  the  night,  and 
He  Appeared!  I  suppose  it  was  all  due  to 
the  fact  that  he  is  a  brilliant  man,  who 
would  shine  anywhere.  However  it  may 
have  been,  I  suddenly  became  conscious 
of  a  being  that  walked  towards  me  as 
plainly  discernible  as  an  ocean  steamship 
at  sea  at  night,  with  every  electric  light 
burning  in  the  saloon,  and  the  red  and 
green  lanterns  on  the  starboard  and  port 
sides  of  its  bow. 

"Mr.  Caine  ?"  said  I,  addressing  his 
starboard  side. 

"That's  I,"  said  he,  grammatically  and 
with  dignity.  A  man  less  great  would 
have  said  "That's  me,"  which  is  why 
in  the  darkness  I  knew  it  was  Mr.  Caine 
and  not  his  hired  man  I  was  speaking  to 
— or  with,  as  your  style  may  require. 

' •'  Mr.  Caine,"  said  I,  not  without  ner 
vousness,  "I  have  come — " 

"So  I  perceive,"  said  he ;  and  then  an 
inspiration  came  to  me. 

" — to  lay  my  gloom  at  your  feet,"  I 
20 


MB.    HALL    CAINE 

said,  with  apparent  meekness.  "  It  is  all 
I  have,  but  such  as  it  is  you  are  welcome 
to  it.  Some  people  would  have  brought 
you  rich  gifts  in  gold  and  silver ;  some 
would  have  come  with  compliments  and 
requests  for  your  autograph  ;  I  bring  you 
only  a  morbid  heart  bursting  with  gloom. 
Will  you  take  it  ?" 

"I  appreciate  the  courtesy,  madame," 
replied  the  great  man,  wiping  a  tear  from 
the  end  of  his  nose,  which  twinkled  like 
a  silver  s£ar  in  the  blackness  of  the  cor 
ridor,  "but  I  cannot  accept  your  offering. 
I  have  more  gloom  on  hand  than  I  know 
what  to  do  with.  I  am,  however,  deeply 
touched,  and  beg  to  offer  you  the  hospi 
tality  of  the  moat,  unless  you  have  further 
business  with  me  at  my  regular  rates." 

A  dreadful,  blood-curdling  wail,  like 
that  of  a  soul  in  torment,  interrupted  my 
answer.  It  seemed  to  come  from  the 
very  centre  of  the  earth  directly  beneath 
my  feet.  I  was  frozen  with  horror,  and 
my  host,  with  a  muttered  imprecation, 
turned  and  ran  off. 

21 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"I  haven't  time  to  see  you  now/'  he 
cried,  as  he  disappeared  down  the  steps  of 
a  yawning  hole  at  the  far  end  of  the  cor 
ridor.  "I  can't  aiford  to  miss  the  ex 
periment  for  anything  so  small  and  cheap 
as  a  morbid  heart  bursting  with  gloom." 

I  followed  closely  after,  although  he 
had  not  granted  permission.  I  didn't  feel 
that  I  could  afford  to  miss  the  experiment 
either,  and  ere  he  had  time  to  slam  to  the 
door  of  the  dungeon  which  we  ultimately 
reached,  I  was  inside  his  workshop. 

If  it  was  chill  without,  it  was  deadly 
within,  save  that  the  darkness  was  not  so 
intense,  red  lights  burning  dimly  in  each 
of  the  four  corners  of  the  dungeon.  The 
walls  were  covered  with  a  green  trickling 
ooze  from  the  moat,  and  under  foot  the 
ground  was  dank  and  almost  mushy. 

In  the  very  centre  of  the  place  was  a 
huge  rack,  a  relic  of  some  by-gone  age  of 
torture,  and  stretched  at  full  length  upon 
it  was  a  man  of,  I  should  say,  about  forty 
years  of  age.  Two  flunkies  in  livery — 
red  plush  trousers  and  powdered  wigs — 
22 


MR.    HALL    CAINE 

now  and  then  turned  the  screw,  and  with 
each  turn  horrid  shrieks  would  come  from 
the  victim,  mingled  with  alternate  prayers 
and  curses. 

"What  on  earth  is  the  meaning  of 
this  ?"  I  cried,  in  horror. 

"It  means,  madame,"  replied  the  fa 
mous  author,  calmly,  "  that  I  never  fake. 
All  my  situations,  all  my  passages  descrip 
tive  of  human  emotions  and  sufferings, 
are  drawn  from  life,  and  not  from  the 
imagination/' 

t '  You  work  from  living  models  ?"  I 
gasped.  "  Why  would  not  a  lay  figure  do 
as  well  for  torture  ?" 

"  Because  lay-figures  do  not  shriek  and 
pray  and  curse.  I  am  surprised  that  you 
should  be  so  dull.  James,  turn  the  thumb 
screw  three  times  ;  and,  Grimmins,  take 
your  cricket -bat  and  give  the  patient  a 
bastinado  on  his  right  foot." 

"It  is  a  pitiless  shame  !"  I  cried. 

' '  It  is  in  the  interest  of  art,  madame," 
said  the  novelist,  shrugging  his  shoulders. 
"  Just  as  our  surgeons  have  to  vivisect  for 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

the  advancement  of  science,,  so  must  I 
conduct  experiments  here  in  the  interest 
of  letters.  My  new  novel  has  a  stirring 
episode  in  it  based  upon  the  capture  and 
torture  of  a  newspaper  correspondent  in 
Thibet.  I  might,,  I  suppose,  have  imag 
ined  the  whole  thing,  but  this  so  far  sur 
passes  the  imagination  that  I  am  con 
vinced  it  is  the  better  way  of  getting  my 
color." 

"  There  isn't  any  doubt  about  that," 
said  I;  "  but  consider  this  man  here,  whose 
limbs  you  are  stretching  beyond  all  en 
durance — " 

"  He  should  regard  it  as  a  splendid  sac 
rifice/'  vouchsafed  the  novelist,  lighting  a 
cigarette  and  winking  pleasantly  at  his 
victim. 

"  Is  his  a  voluntary  sacrifice  ?"  I  de 
manded. 

"Rather  good  joke  that,  eh,  Rogers?" 
laughed  Mr.  Caine,  addressing  the  suf 
ferer.  ' '  This  simple-minded  little  Ameri 
can  girl  asks  if  you  are  there  because  you 
like  it.  Ha  !  ha  !  What  a  droll  idea  ! 
24 


MR.    HALL    CAINE 

Thinks  you  do  this  for  pleasure,  Rogers. 
Has  an  idea  you  tied  yourself  on  there 
and  racked  yourself  at  first,  so  she  has. 
Thinks  you  shriek  so  as  to  smother  your 
laughter,  which  would  be  very  inappropri 
ate  to  the  occasion." 

The  sufferer  groaned  deeply,  and  the 
novelist,  turning  to  me,  observed  : 

"No,  madame.  My  poor  unhappy  friend 
Rogers  is  here  against  his  will,  I  regret 
to  say.  It  would  be  far  pleasanter  for  me 
when  I  hear  him  bastinadoed  to  know 
that  he  derived  a  certain  amount  of  per 
sonal  satisfaction  from  it  in  spite  of  the 
pain,  but  it  must  be  otherwise.  Further 
more,  in  the  story  the  newspaper  man 
who  is  tortured  is  not  supposed  to  like  it, 
so  that  accuracy  requires  that  I  should 
have  a  man,  like  Rogers,  who  dislikes  it 
intensely." 

"  And  do  you  mean  to  say,  sir,  that  you 
deliberately  went  out  into  the  street  and 
seized  hold  of  this  poor  fellow,  carried  him 
in  here,  and  subjected  him  to  all  this  ? 
Why,  it's  a  crime  !" 

25 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"  Not  at  all,"  replied  Mr.  Caine,  non 
chalantly.  "  I  am  no  common  kidnap 
per.  I  do  not  belong  to  a  literary  press- 
gang.  I  have  simply  exercised  my  rights 
as  the  owner  of  this  castle.  This  man 
came  here  on  his  own  responsibility,  just  as 
you  have  come.  I  never  asked  him  any 
more  than  I  asked  you,  and  he  has  had  to 
take  the  consequences,  just  as  you  will 
have  to  abide  by  whatever  may  result 
from  your  temerity.  Rogers  is  a  news 
paper  man,  and  he  tried  to  get  a  free  in 
terview  out  of  me  by  deceit,  knowing  that 
I  no  longer  do  a  gratis  business.  It  so 
happened  that  I  was  at  that  moment  in 
need  of  just  such  a  person  for  my  experi 
ment.  I  gave  him  the  interview,  and  now 
he  is  paying  for  it." 

The  novelist  paused,  and  after  eying  me 
somewhat  closely  for  a  moment,  turned  to 
his  notes,  lying  on  his  desk  alongside  the 
rack,  while  a  tremor  of  fear  passed  over 
me. 

"  Curious  coincidence,"  he  remarked, 
looking  up  from  an  abstract  of  his  story. 
26 


MR.    HALL    CAIN  K 

"In  my  very  next  chapter  I  take  up  the 
sufferings  in  captivity  of  a  young  and 
beautiful  American  girl  who  is  languish 
ing  and  starving  in  a  loathsome  cell,  full 
of  reptiles  and  poisonous  beasts,  like  Gila 
monsters  and  centipedes.  She  is  to  be  just 
your  height  and  coloring  and  age." 

I  grew  rigid  with  horror. 

"You  wouldn't — "  I  began. 

"  Oh  yes,  I  would,"  replied  the  author, 
pleasantly.  "Would  you  like  to  see  the 
cell  ?" 

"I  would  like  to  see  the  outside  of 
your  castle !"  I  cried,  turning  to  the 
stairs. 

The  novelist  laughed  hollowly  at  the  ex 
pression  of  hopelessness  that  came  over  my 
face  as  I  observed  that  a  huge  iron  grat 
ing  had  slid  down  from  above  and  cut  off 
my  retreat. 

"I  am  sorry,  Miss  Witherup,  but  I 
haven't  got  the  outside  of  my  castle  in 
here.  If  I  had  Fd  show  it  to  you  at 
once,"  he  said. 

"I  beg  of  you,  sir,"  I  cried,  going  down 
27 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

on  my  knees  before  him.     "  Do  let  me  go. 
j » 

"  Don't  be  emotional,  my  dear,"  he  re 
plied,  in  a  nice,  fatherly  way.  "  You  will 
have  an  alternative.  When  I  have  re 
ceipted  this,"  he  added,  writing  out  a  bill 
and  tossing  it  to  me — "when  I  have  re 
ceipted  this,  you  can  go." 

I  glanced  at  the  paper.  It  called  for 
£1500  for  an  interview  of  an  hour  and  a 
half,  at  £1000  an  hour. 

"If  you  will  give  me  your  check  for 
that  amount,  you  may  go.  0  therwise  I  am 
afraid  I  shall  have  to  use  you  for  a  model." 

"I  have  only  £1200  in  the  bank,"  I  re 
plied,  bursting  into  tears. 

"  It  will  suffice,"  said  he.  "  Your  terror 
will  be  worth  £300  to  me  in  a  short  story 
I  am  writing  for  the  Manx  Sunday 
Whir  aid." 

Whereupon  I  wrote  him  a  check  for 
£1200  and  made  my  escape. 

"  Pll  expose  you  to  the  world  !"  I  roared 
back  at  him  in  my  wrath  as  I  walked  down 
the  path  to  the  road. 
28 


MR.    HALL    CAINE 

"Do,"  he  cried.  " I  never  object  to  a 
free  advertisement.  By-bye." 

With  that  I  left  him,  and  hastened  back 
to  London  to  stop  payment  on  the  check  ; 
but  in  some  fashion  he  got  the  better  of 
me,  for  it  happened  to  be  on  a  bank  holi 
day  that  I  arrived,  and  ere  I  could  give 
notice  to  the  cashier  to  refuse  to  honor 
my  draft  it  had  been  cashed. 


EMPEROR  WILLIAM 


EMPEROR  WILLIAM 


JLAFTER  recovering  from  the  attack  of 
nervous  prostration  which  was  the  natural 
result  of  my  short  visit  to  Gloomster  Ab 
bey,  acting  on  my  physician's  advice  I  left 
England  for  a  timej  Finding  myself,  some 
weeks  later,  in  Berlin,  I  resolved  to  call 
upon  his  Imperial  Highness  William  the 
Second,  better  known  as  the  Yellow  Kid 
of  Potsdam. 

I  experienced  some  difficulty  at  first  in 
reaching  the  Emperor.  Royalty  is  so 
hedged  about  by  etiquette  that  it  seemed 
almost  impossible  that  I  should  get  an  au 
dience  with  him  at  all.  He  was  most  charm 
ing  about  the  matter,  but,  as  he  said  in  his 
note  to  me,  he  could  not  forget  the  differ- 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

ence  in  our  respective  stations  in  life. 
For  an  Emperor  to  consent  to  receive  a 
plain  American  newspaper  woman  was  out 
of  the  question.  He  could  be  interviewed 
incog.)  however,  as  Mr.  William  Hohen- 
zollern,  if  that  would  suit  my  wishes. 

I  replied  instantly  that  it  was  not  Mr. 
William  Hohenzollern  that  I  wished  to  in 
terview,  but  the  German  Emperor,  and 
unless  I  could  see  him  as  Emperor  I  did 
not  wish  to  see  him  at  all.  I  added  that 
I  might  come  incog,  myself  if  all  that  was 
necessary  to  make  the  whole  thing  regular 
was  that  I  should  appear  to  be  on  a  social 
level  with  him,  and  instead  of  calling  as 
Miss  Withernp  I  could  call  as  the  Mar 
chioness  of  Spuyten  Duyville,  or,  if  he  pre 
ferred,  Princess  of  Haarlem  Heights^o 
both  of  which  titles,  I  assured  him,  I  had 
as  valid  a  claim  as  any  other  lady  journal 
ist  in  the  world — in  fact,  more  so,  since 
they  were  both  of  my  own  invention^ 

Whether  it  was  the  independence  of  my 
action  or  the  novelty  of  the  situation  that 
brought  it  about  I  do  not  know,  but  the 
34 


EMPEROR    WILLIAM 

return  mail  brought  a  command  from  the 
Emperor  to  the  Princess  of  Haarlem 
Heights  to  attend  a  royal  fete  given  in 
her  honor  at  the  Potsdam  Palace  the 
next  morning  at  twenty  minutes  after 
eleven. 

I  was  there  on  the  stroke  of  the  hour, 
and  found  his  Imperial  Highness  sitting 
on  a  small  gilt  throne  surrounded  by 
mirrors,  having  his  tintype  taken.  This 
is  one  of  the  Emperor's  daily  duties,  and 
one  which  he  has  never  neglected  from 
the  day  of  his  birth.  He  has  a  complete 
set  of  these  tintypes  ranged  about  the 
walls  of  his  private  sanctum  in  the  form 
of  a  frieze,  and  he  frequently  spends  hours 
at  a  time  seated  on  a  step-ladder  examin 
ing  himself  as  he  looked  on  certain  days 
in  the  past. 

He  smiled  affably  as  the  Grand  High 
Chamberlain  announced  "The  Princess 
of  Haarlem  Heights,"  and  on  my  entrance 
threw  me  one  of  his  imperial  gloves  to 
shake. 

"  Hoch  !"  he  cried  as  he  did  so. 
35 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"Ditto  hie/'  I  answered,  with  my  most 
charming  smile.  "I  hope  I  do  not  dis 
turb  you,,  my  dear  Emperor  ?" 

"  Not  in  the  least/'  he  replied.  "  Noth 
ing  disturbs  us.  We  are  the  very  centre 
of  equanimity.  We  are  a  sort  of  human 
Gibraltar  which  nothing  can  move.  It  is 
a  nice  day  out/'  he  a; Lied. 

"Most  charming.'''  said  I.  tlndeed,  a 
nicer  day  out  tb.m  this  no  one  could  wish 
for." 

"We  are  ;;.  id  you  find  it  so,  mad  am  e." 

"  Excus^  •  me,  sire/'G  said,  nrmlyj— 
"PrincfNfe." 

"Indeed  yes.  We  had  forgotten/'  he 
replied,  with  a  courteous  wave  of  his  hand/! 
'%It  could  not  be  otherwise.  We  are  glafC 
Princess,  that  you  find  the  day  nice  out. 
We  ordered  it  so,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  feel 
that  what  we  do  for  the  world  is  appre 
ciated.  We  shall  not  ask  you  why  you 
have  sought  this  interview/'  he  contin 
ued.  "We  can  quite  understand,  with 
out  wasting  our  time  on  frivolous  ques 
tions,  why  any  one,  even  a  beautiful 
36 


EXAMINING   HIMSELF 


EMPEROR    WILLIAM 

American  like  yourself,  should  wish  to 
see  us  in  person.  /Are  you  in  Berlin  for 
long  ?" 

"  Only  until  next  Thursday,  sire,"  I  re 
plied. 

"  What  a  pity  \"  he  commented,  rising 
from  the  throne  and  stroking  his  mus 
tache  before  one  of  the  mirrors.  "What 
a,  tremendous  pity !  We  should  have 
been  pleased  to  have  had  you  with  us 
longerj 

"  Emperor,"  said  I,\  '[this  is  no  time 
for  vain  complimentsLnowever  pleasing 
to  me  they  may  ^ej  ^Let  us  get  down 
to  business.  Let  us  talk  about  the  great 
problems  of  the  day." 

"As  you  will,  Princess,"  he  replied. 
"To  begin  with,  we  were  born — " 

"  Pardon  me,  sire," I  interrupted.  "But 
I  know  all  about  your  history." 

"They  study  us  in  your  schools,  do 
they  ?  Ah,  well,  they  do  rightly,"  said 
the  Emperor,  with  a  wink  of  satisfaction 
at  himself  in  the  glass.  "They  indeed 
do  rightly  to  study  us.  When  one  con- 
37 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

siders  what  we  are  the  result  of  !  Far 
back,  Princess,  in  the  days  of  Thor,  the 
original  plans  for  William  Second  were 
made.  This  person,  whom  we  have  the 
distinguished  and  sacred  honor  to  be,  was 
contemplated  in  the  days  when  chaos 
ruled.  Gods  have  dreamed  of  him  ;  god 
desses  have  sighed  for  him  ;  epochs  have 
shed  bitter  tears  because  he  was  not  yet ; 
and  finally  he  is  here,  in  us  —  incarnate 
sublimity  that  we  are  I" 

The  Emperor  thumped  his  chest  proud 
ly  as  he  spoke,  until  the  gold  on  his  uni 
form  fairly  rang. 

"Are  we  —  ah  —  are  we  appreciated  in 
America  ?"  he  asked. 

"  To  the  full,  Emperor— to  the  full !"  I 
replied,  instantly.  "I  do  not  know  any 
country  on  the  face  of  this  grand  green 
earth  where  you  are  quoted  more  often  at 
your  full  value  than  with  us/7 

"And  —  ah,"  he  added,  with  a  slight 
coyness  of  manner — "we  are — ah — sup 
posed  to  be  at  what  you  Americans  call 
par  and  a  premium,  eh  ?" 


EMPEROR    WILLIAM 

"Emperor,"  said  I,  "yon  arc  known  to 
us  as  yourself." 

"'Madame  —  or  rather  Princess,"  lie 
cried,  ecstatically,  "you  could  not  have 
praised  us  more  highly." 

He  touched  an  electric  button  as  he 
spoke,  and  instantly  a  Buttons  ap 
peared. 

"The  iron  cross  !"  he  cried. 

"  Not  for  me — oh,  sire — not  for  me  ?" 
said  I,  almost  swooning  with  joy. 

"Xo,  Princess,  not  for  you,"  said  the 
Emperor.  "Forourself.  We  shall  give 
you  one  of  the  buttons  off  our  imperial 
coat.  It  is  our  habit  every  morning  at 
this  hour  to  decorate  our  imperial  self, 
and  we  have  rung  for  the  usual  thing 
just  as  you  Americans  would  ring  for  a 
Manhattan  cocktail."  >— 

Iwiuit !"  I  cried,  wondering  at  the  man's 
marvellous  acquaintance  with  the  slightest 
details  of  American  life.  "  You  know  the 
— Manhattan  cocktail  ?" 

"  Princess,"  said  the  Emperor,  proudly, 
"we  know  everything." 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

And  this  was  the  man  they  call  Willie- 
boy  in  London  ! 

"Emperor/"  said  I,  "about  the  parti 
tion  of  China  ?" 

"  Well/'  said  he,  "  what  of  the  partition 
of  China  ?" 

"Is  it  to  be  partitioned  ?" 

The  Emperor's  eye  twinkled. 

"  We  have  not  yet  read  the  morning  pa 
pers,  Princess/'  he  said.  "But  we  judge, 
from  what  we  saw  in  the  society  news  of 
last  night's  Fliegende  Choynal,  that  there 
will  be  a  military  ball  at  Peking  shortly, 
and  that  the  affair  will  end  brilliantly  with 
a — ah — a  German/' 

"  Good  !"  said  L\  "And  you  will  really 
fight  England  ?"-- 

"Why  not?"  said  he,  with  a  smile  at 
the  looking-glass. 

"Your  grandmother  ?"  I  queried,  with 
a  slight  shake  of  my  head,  in  deprecation 
of  a  family  row. 

"She  calls  us  Billie  !"  he  cried,  passion 
ately.  "Grandmothers  can  do  a  great 
many  things,  Princess,  but  no  grand- 
40 


EMPEROR    WILLIAM 

mother  that  Heaven  ever  sent  into  this 
world  shall  call  us  Billie  with  impunity." 

I  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

" Still,  Emperor/'  I  said,  at  last,  "Eng 
land  has  been  very  good  to  you.  She  has 
furnished  you  with  all  the  coal  your  ships 
needed  to  steam  into  Chinese  waters. 
Surely  that  was  the  act  of  a  grandmother. 
You  wouldn't  fight  her  after  that  ?" 

"We  will,  if  she'll  lend  us  ammunition 
for  our  guns,"  said  the  Emperor,  gloomily. 
"  If  she  won't  do  that,  then  of  course  there 
will  be  no  war.  But,  Princess,  let  us  talk 
of  other  things.  Have  you  heard  our 
latest  musical  composition  ?" 

I  frankly  confessed  that  I  had  not,  and 
the  imperial  band  was  called  up  and  order 
ed  to  play  the  Emperor's  new  march.  It 
was  very  moving  and  made  me  somewhat 
homesick  ;  for,  after  all,  with  all  due  re 
spect  to  William's  originality,  it  was  noth 
ing  more  than  a  slightly  Prussianized  ren 
dering  of  "All  Coons  Look  Alike  to  Me." 
However,  I  praised  the  work,  and  added 
that  I  had  heard  nothing  like  it  in  Wagner, 
41 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

which  seemed  to  please  the  Emperor  very 
much.  I  have  since  heard  that  as  a  com 
poser  he  resents  Wagner,  and  attributes 
the  success  of  the  latter  merely  to  that 
accident  of  birth  which  brought  the  com 
poser  into  the  world  a  half-century  before 
William  had  his  chance. 

"And  now,  Princess,"  he  observed,  as 
the  music  ceased,  "your  audience  is  over. 
We  are  to  have  our  portrait  painted  at 
mid-day,  and  the  hour  has  come.  Assure 
your  people  of  our  undying  regard.  You 
may  kiss  our  little  finger." 

"  And  will  not  your  Majesty  honor  me 
with  his  autograph  ?"  I  asked,  holding 
out  my  book,  after  I  had  kissed  his  little 
finger. 

"With  pleasure,"  said  he,  taking  the 
book  and  complying  with  my  request  as 
follows  : 

"  Faithfully  your  War  Lord  and  Master, 

"ME." 

Wasn't  it  characteristic  ! 


\\K   AKE   HAVING   OUK   I'OKTRAITS   PAINTED'  ' 


ME.   ALFRED  AUSTIN 


ME.  ALFRED  AUSTIN 


IT  was  on  a  beautiful  March  afternoon 
that  I  sought  out  the  Poet-Laureate  of 
England  in  his  official  sanctum  in  Lon 
don.  A  splendid  mantle  of  fog  hung  over 
the  street,  shutting  out  the  otherwise  all 
too  commercial  aspect  of  that  honored  by 
way.  It  was  mid-day  to  the  stroke  of  the 
hour,  and  a  soft  mellow  glare  suffused  the 
perspective  in  either  direction,  proceeding 
from  the  gas-lamps  upon  the  street  cor 
ners,  which,  like  the  fires  of  eternal  youth, 
are  kept  constantly  burning  in  the  capital 
city  of  the  Guelphs. 

I  approached  the  lair  of  England's  first 
poet  with  a  beating  heart,  the  trip-ham 
mer-like  thudding  of  which  against  my 
45 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

ribs  could  be  heard  like  the  pounding  of 
the  twin  screws  of  an  Atlantic  liner  far 
down  beneath  the  folds  of  my  mackintosh. 
To  stand  in  the  presence  of  Tennyson's 
successor  was  an  ambition  to  wish  to 
gratify,  but  it  was  awesome,  and  not  a 
little  difficult  for  the  nervous  system. 
However,  once  committed  to  the  enter 
prise,  I  was  not  to  be  baffled,  and  with 
shaking  knees  and  tremulous  hand  I 
banged  the  brazen  knocker  against  the 
door  until  the  hall  within  echoed  and  re 
echoed  with  its  clangor. 

Immediately  a  window  on  the  top  story 
was  opened,  and  the  laureate  himself 
thrust  his  head  out.  I  could  dimly  per 
ceive  the  contour  of  his  noble  forehead 
through  the  mist. 

"Who's  there,  who's  there,  I  fain  would  know, 

Are  you  some  dull  and  dunning  dog  ? 
Are  you  a  friend,  or  eke  a  foe  ? 
I  cannot  see  you  through  the  fog," 

said  he. 

"  I  am  an  American  lady  journalist,"  I 
46 


MR.    ALFRED    AUSTIN 

cried  up  to  him,  making  a  megaphone  of 
my  two  hands  so  that  he  might  not  miss  a 
word,  "and  I  have  come  to  offer  you  seven 
dollars  a  word  for  a  glimpse  of  you  at 
home." 

"How  much  is  that  in  £  s.  cl?"  he 
asked,  eagerly. 

"  One  pound  eight,"  said  I. 

"Til  he  down,"  he  replied,  instantly, 
and  drawing  his  nohle  brow  in  out  of 
the  wet,  he  slammed  the  window  to,  and, 
if  the  squeaking  sounds  I  heard  within 
meant  anything,  slid  down  the  banisters 
in  order  not  to  keep  me  waiting  long 
er  than  was  necessary.  He  opened  the 
door,  and  in  a  moment  we  stood  face  to 
face. 

"Mr.  Alfred  Austin  ?"  said  I. 

' '  The  same,  O  Lady  Journalist, 
I'm  glad  to  take  you  by  the  fist- 
Particularly  since  I've  heard 
You  offer  one  pun  eight  per  word," 

said  he,  cordially  grasping  me  by  the  hand. 

"Come  right  up  and  make  yourself  per- 

47 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

fectly  at  home,  and  I'll  give  you  an  imi 
tation  of  my  daily  routine,  and  will  answer 
whatever  questions  you  may  see  fit  to  ask. 
Of  course  you  must  be  aware  that  I  am 
averse  to  this  sort  of  thing  generally. 
The  true  poet  cannot  permit  the  search 
light  of  publicity  to  be  turned  upon  his 
home  without  losing  something  of  that 
delicate — " 

"Hold  on,  Mr.  Austin/'  said  I.  "I 
don't  wish  to  be  rude,  but  I  am  not  author 
ized  to  pay  you  seven  dollars  apiece  for 
such  words  as  these  you  are  uttering.  If 
you  have  any  explanations  to  offer  the 
public  for  condescending  to  let  me  peep  at 
you  while  at  work,  you  must  do  it  at  your 
own  expense." 

A  shade  of  disappointment  passed  over 
his  delicate  features. 

"There's  a  hundred  guineas  gone  at 
a  stroke,"  he  muttered,  and  for  an  in 
stant  I  feared  that  I  was  to  receive  my 
conge.  By  a  strong  effort  of  the  will, 
however,  the  laureate  pulled  himself  to 
gether. 

48 


MR.    ALFRED    AUSTIN 

"If  that's  the  case,  O  Yankee  fair, 
Suppose  we  hasten  up  the  stair, 
Where  every  day  the  Muses  call, 
And  waste  no  words  here  in  the  hall," 

said  he.  And  then  he  added,  courteously : 
"I  am  sorry  the  elevator  isn't  running. 
It's  one  of  these  English  elevators,  you 
know." 

"Indeed  ?"  said  I.  "And  what  is  the 
peculiarity  of  an  English  elevator  ?" 

"Like  Britons  'neath  the  foeman's  serried  guns, 
The  British  elevator  never  runs  ; 
For  like  the  brain  of  the  Scottish  Thane, 
The  Thane,  you  know,  of  Cawdor, 
Our  lifts  are  al\va}Ts  out  of  order," 

he  explained.  "It's  very  annoying,  too, 
particularly  when  you  have  to  carry  poems 
up  and  down  stairs." 

"You  should  let  your  poems  do  their 
own  walking,  Mr.  Austin,"  said  I. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  he.  "But 
how  can  they  ?" 

"  Those  I've  seen  have  had  feet  enough 
D  49 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

for  a  centipede/'  said  I,  as  dryly  as  I  could, 
considering  that  I  was  still  dripping  with 
fog. 

The  laureate  scratched  his  head  sol 
emnly. 

" Quite  so/'  he  said,  at  length.  "But 
come,  let  us  hasten." 

We  hastened  upward,  and  five  minutes 
later  we  were  in  the  sanctum.  It  was  a 
charming  room.  A  complete  set  of  the 
British  Poets  stood  ranged  in  chronolog 
ical  sequence  on  the  table.  A  copy  of 
Hood's  Rliymster,  well  thumbed,  lay  open 
on  the  sofa,  and  a  volume  of  popular  quo 
tations  lay  on  the  floor  beside  the  poet's 
easy-chair. 

A  full-length  portrait  of  her  Majesty 
the  Queen,  seven  inches  high  and  sixteen 
wide,  hung  over  the  fireplace,  and  beneath 
it  stood  a  charming  bust  of  the  late  Lord 
Tennyson  with  the  face  turned  towards 
the  wall. 

"  A  beautiful  workshop/'  said  I.  "  Sure 
ly  one  sees  now  the  sources  of  your  inspi 
ration." 

50 


Mil.    ALFRED    AUSTIN 

"'Tis  true  my  dear.     'Tis  very,  very  true. 

Here  in  my  sanctum,  high  above  the  pave, 

ma'am, 

I  can't  help  doing  all  the  things  I  do, 
Not  e'en  my  great  immortal  soul  to  save, 

ma'am. 
You  see,  a  m;in  \\\\o  daily  has  to  write 

Of  things  of  which  Calliope  doth  side-talk, 
Must    get    above   the    earth    and    leave    the 

wight 

AVho    dully   plods    along    along    the    side 
walk," 

he  answered.  "That's  why  I  live  under 
the  roof  instead  of  hiring  chambers  on  the 
ground-floor.  Up  here  I  am  not  bothered 
by  what  in  one  of  my  new  poems  I  shall 
call '  Mundane  Tilings/  Rather  good  ex 
pression  that,  don't  you  think  ?  The  first 
draft  reads  : 

"  'Mundane  things,  mundane  things, 
Hansom  cabs  and  finger  rings, 
Drossy  glitter  and  glittering  dross, 
May  I  never  come  across 
Merely  mundane,  mundane  things.' 

Rather    clever,   to    be    tossed    oil    on    a 
51 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

scratch  pad  while  taking  a  shower-bath, 
eh  ?" 

"  Yes/-'  said  I.     "  What  suggested  it  ?" 

"The    merest    accident.     I   got   some 

soap  in  my  eye  and  was   about  to  give 

way  to  my  temper,  when   I   thought   to 

myself  that  the  true  poet  ought  to  rise 

above  petty  annoyances  of  that  nature — 

in  other  words,  above  mundane  things." 

"Wonderfully  interesting,"  I  put  in. 

"Was   your  appointment   a    surprise   to 

you,  Mr.  Austin?" 

4 'Surprise?    Nay,  nay,  my  lovely  maid. 

Pray  why  should  I  surprised  be  ? 
Despite  that  Fortune's  but  a  fickle  jade, 

I  knew  the  thing  must  corne  to  me, 
For  in  these  days  commercial,  don't  you  see, 
From  eyes  like  mine  no  thing  can  e'er  be 

hid; 

And  when  they  advertised  for  poetry, 
'Twas  I  put  in  the  very  lowest  bid," 

he  replied.  "You  see,  as  a  newspaper 
man  I  knew  what  rates  the  other  poets 
were  getting.  There  was  Swinburne  get 
ting  seven  bob  a  line,  and  Sir  Edwin 
52 


Mil.    ALFRED    AUSTIN 

Arnold  asking  a  guinea  a  yard,  and  old 
Kipling  grinding  it  out  for  one  and  six 
per  quatrain,  and  Watson  doing  sonnets 
on  the  Yellow  North,  and  the  Red,  White, 
and  Blue  East,  and  the  Pink  Sow'west,  at 
five  pounds  a  dozen.  So  when  Salisbury 
rang  me  up  on  the  'phone  and  said  I'd 
better  put  in  a  bid  for  the  verse  contract, 
I  knew  just  how  to  arrange  my  rates  to 
get  the  work." 

"You  had  a  great  advantage  over  the 
others,"  said  I. 

"Which  shows  the  value  of  a  news 
paper  training.  Newspaper  men  know 
everything,"  he  said.  "I  had  but  one 
fear,  and  that  was  your  American  poets. 
They  are  hustlers,  and  I  didn't  know  but 
that  some  enterprising  American  like 
Russell  Sage  or  Barnum  &  Bailey  would 
form  a  syndicate  and  corner  America's 
poem-supply,  and  bowl  my  wickets  from 
under  me.  Working  together,  they  could 
have  done  it,  but  they  didn't  know  their 
power,  thank  Heaven  ! — if  I  may  borrow 
an  Americanism." 

53 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"Well,  Mr.  Austin,"  said  I,  rising, 
"  I  am.  afraid  I  shall  have  to  go.  I  fear 
your  words  have  already  exceeded  the  ap 
propriation.  Ah — how  much  do  I  owe 
you  ?" 

The  laureate  took  from  beneath  his 
chin  a  small  golden  object  that  looked 
like  a  locket.  Opening  it,  he  scanned  it 
closely  for  a  moment. 

"My  chinometer  says  nine  hundred 
and  sixty-three  words.  Let  us  call  it  a 
thousand — I  don't  care  for  trifles,"  said 
he. 

"Very  well,"  I  replied.  "  That  is  $7000 
I  owe  you." 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "But  of  course  I 
allow  you  the  usual  discount." 

"For  what  ?"  said  I. 

"Cash,"  said  he.  "Poole  does  it  on 
clothes,  and  Fve  adopted  the  system. 
It  pays  in  the  end,  for,  as  I  say  in  my 
next  ode  to  the  Queen,  to  be  written  on 
the  occasion  of  her  Ruby  Jubilee,  <A 
sovereign  in  hand  is  worth  two  heirs- 
presumptive  in  the  bush/'' 
54 


a 

CONSULTING    HIS  CHINOMETER 


Mil.    ALFRED    AUSTIN 

"  In  other  words,  cash  deferred  maketh 
the  heart  sick." 

"Precisely.  I'll  put  that  motto  down 
in  my  note-book  for  future  use." 

"I  thank  you  for  the  compliment," 
said  I,  as  I  paid  him  $5950.  "  Good-bye, 
Mr.  Austin." 

"Good-bye,  Miss  Witherup,"  said  he. 
"  Any  time  when  you  find  you  have  a  half 
hour  and  £1000  to  spare  come  again. 

"Say  au  revoir,  but  not  good-bye, 

For  why  ? 
There  is  110  cause  to  whisper  vale, 

When  we  can  parley 
Without  a  fear 
That  words  are  cheap,  my  dear," 

said  he,  ushering  me  down -stairs  and 
bowing  me  out  into  the  fog,  which  by 
this  time  had  lightened  so  that  I  could 
see  the  end  of  my  nose  as  I  walked  along. 


ANDREW   LANG 


ANDREW   LANG 


SEVERAL  days  after  the  exhilarating  in 
terview  with  the  Poet-Lanreate  of  Eng 
land,  I  was  honored  by  a  dinner  given 
to  me  by  the  Honorable  Company  of  Lady 
Copy-Mongers  at  their  guildhall  in  Picca 
dilly  Circus,  S.W.  It  was  a  delightful 
affair,  and  I  met  many  ladies  of  promi 
nence  in  literary  fields.  Miss  Braddon 
and  John  Oliver  Hobbes  were  there,  and 
one  rather  stout  old  lady,  of  regal  manner, 
who  was  introduced  as  Clara  Guelph,  but 
whom  I  strongly  suspected  to  be  none 
other  than  the  authoress  of  that  famous 
and  justly  popular  work,  Leaves  from  My 
Diary  in  the  Highlands,  or  Sixty  Years  a 
Potentate.  She  was  very  gracious  to  me, 
59 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

and  promised  to  send  me  an  autograph 
copy  of  her  publisher's  circular. 

Most  interesting  of  all  the  persons  en 
countered  at  the  banquet,  however,  was 
Miss  Philippa  Phipps-Phipps,  forewoman 
of  the  Andrew  Lang  Manuscript- Manu 
facturing  Company,  from  whom  I  gained 
much  startling  information  which  I  am 
certain  will  interest  the  public. 

In  the  course  of  our  conversation  I  ob 
served  to  Miss  Phipps-Phipps,  of  whom  I 
had  never  heard  before,  that  nothing  in 
modern  letters  so  amazed  me  as  the  out 
put  of  Andrew  Lang,  for  both  its  quality 
and  its  quantity.  The  lady  flushed  pleas- 
urably,  and  said,  modestly  : 

"We  try  to  keep  up  to  the  standard, 
Miss  Witherup.  As  a  worker  in  literary 
fields,  you  perhaps  realize  how  hard  it  is 
to  do  this,  but  of  one  thing  I  assure  you — 
we  have  never  in  the  last  ten  years  allowed 
a  bit  of  scamp  work  of  any  description  to 
go  out  of  our  factory.  Of  course  we  have 
grades  of  work,  but  the  lower  grades  do 
not  go  out  with  the  Lang  mark  upon  them/' 
60 


TRADE-MARK.      NONE   GENUINE   WITHOUT   IT 


ANDREW    LANG 

I  looked  at  Miss  Phipps-Phipps  in  a 
puzzled  way,  for  the  full  import  of  her 
words  did  not  dawn  upon  me  instantly. 

"I  don't  quite  understand/'  said  I. 
"We?  Who  are  we?" 

"  The  Lang  Manuscript-Manufacturing 
Company/'  explained  the  young  woman. 
"You  are  aware,  of  course,  that  Andrew 
Lang  is  not  an  individual,  but  a  corpo 
ration  ?" 

"I  certainly  never  dreamed  it/'  said 
I,  with  a  half-smile. 

"  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?"  asked 
Miss  Phipps-Phipps.  "No  human  being 
could  alone  turn  out  an  average  of  G47,- 
000,000  words  a  year,  Miss  Witherup,  not 
even  if  he  could  run  two  type-writers  at 
once,  and  write  with  his  feet  while  dic 
tating  to  a  stenographer.  It  would  be  a 
physical  impossibility." 

"Dear   me!"   I    cried   in   amazement. 
"I  knew  that  there  were  thousands  of 
articles  from  Lang  every  year,  but  G47,- 
000,000  words  !    Why,  it  is  incredible  !" 
"  That  is  only  the  average,  you  know," 
61 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

said  Miss  Phipps-Phipps,  proudly.  "In 
good  years  we  have  run  as  high  as  716,- 
000,346  words  ;  and  this  year,  if  all  goes 
well  and  our  operatives  do  not  strike,  we 
expect  to  turn  out  over  800,000,000.  We 
have  signed  contracts  to  deliver  111,- 
383,000  words  in  the  month  of  June 
alone — mostly  Christmas  stuff,  you  know, 
to  be  published  next  November.  Last 
month  we  turned  out  39,000  lines  of  po 
etry  a  day  for  twenty-five  working-days, 
and  our  essay-mill  has  been  running  over 
time  for  sixteen  weeks." 

"  Well,  I  am  surprised  !"  said  I.  "Yet, 
when  I  come  to  think  of  it,  there  is  no 
reason  why  I  should  be.  This  is  an  age 
of  corporations." 

"Precisely,"  said  Miss  Phipps-Phipps. 
"  Furthermore,  ours  had  a  philanthropic 
motive  at  the  bottom  of  it  all.  Here  was 
Mr.  Lang  simply  killing  himself  with 
work,  and  some  700  young  men  and  wom 
en  of  an  aspiring  turn  of  mind  absolute 
ly  out  of  employment.  The  burdens  of 
the  one,  we  believed,  could  be  made  to 
62 


A\I»KI-;\V    LANG 

relieve  the  necessities  of  the  other,  and 
we  made  the  proposition  to  Mr.  Lung 
to  make  himself  over  to  us,  promising 
to  fill  his  contracts  and  relieve  him  of 
the  necessity  of  doing  any  further  liter 
ary  work  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  We  in 
corporated  him  on  a  basis  of  £2,000,000, 
giving  him  £1,000,000  in  shares.  The 
rest  was  advertised  as  for  sale,  and  was 
oversubscribed  ten  to  one.  Workshops 
were  built  at  Woking,  and  as  a  starter  GOO 
operatives  were  employed.  Working  night 
and  day,  at  the  end  of  the  first  year  we 
were  just  three  months  behind  our  orders. 
We  immediately  doubled  our  force  to 
1200,  and  so  it  has  gone  until  to-day, 
and  the  business  is  constantly  increasing. 
Our  stock  is  at  a  premium  of  117$, 
and  we  keep  3750  people,  with  a  capacity 
of  10,000  words  a  day  each,  constantly 
employed." 

"I  am  astonished!"  I  cried.  "The 
magnitude  of  the  work  is  appalling.  Are 
your  shops  open  to  visitors  ?" 

"Certainly.     I  shall  be  pleased  if  you 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

will  come  out  to  Woking  to-morrow,  and 
I  will  show  you  over  the  establishment," 
replied  Miss  Phipps-Phipps,  courteously. 
And  then  for  the  moment  the  conver 
sation  stopped. 

The  next  day  I  was  at  Woking,  where 
Miss  Phipps-Phipps  met  me  at  the  sta 
tion.  A  ten -minutes'  drive  brought  us 
to  the  factory,  a  detailed  description  of 
which  would  be  impossible  in  the  limits 
at  my  disposal.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  af 
ter  an  hour's  walk  through  the  various  de 
partments  I  was  still  not  half  acquainted 
with  the  marvels  of  the  establishment. 
In  the  Essay  and  Letters  to  Dead  Authors 
Department  sixty-eight  girls  were  driving 
their  pens  at  a  rate  that  made  my  head 
whirl.  A  whole  floor  was  given  over  to 
the  Fairy-Tale  Department,  and  I  saw 
fairy-books  of  all  the  colors  in  the  rain 
bow  being  turned  out  at  a  rapid  rate. 

"  Here,"  said  the  f  orelady,  as  we  reached 
a  large,  capacious,  and  well-lighted  writ 
ing-room,  "  is  our  latest  venture.  There 
are  700  employees  in  here,  and  they  work 
64 


ANDREW    LANG 

from  1)  A.M.  to  12,  have  a  half  hour  for 
luncheon,  and  resume.  At  five  they  go 
home.  They  have  in  hand  the  Lang 
Meredith.  We  have  purchased  from  Mr. 
Meredith  all  right  and  title  to  his  com- 
plete  works,  which  we  are  having  rewrit 
ten.  These  will  appear  at  the  proper 
time  as  *  The  Lucid  Meredith,  by  Andrew 
Lang/  The  old  gentleman  at  the  desk 
over  there,"  she  added,  pointing  to  a  keen- 
eyed,  sharp-visaged  fellow,  with  a  long 
nose  and  nervous  manner,  "is  Mr.  Fergus 
Holmes,  who  began  life  as  a  detective,  and 
became  a  critic.  He  is  here  on  a  large 
salary,  and  has  nothing  to  do  but  use  his 
critical  insight  and  detective  instinct  to 
find  the  thought  in  some  of  Mr.  Mere 
dith's  most  complicated  periods.  After 
all,  Miss  Witherup,  our  operators  are 
only  human,  and  some  of  them  cannot 
understand  Meredith  as  well  as  they 
might." 

"I  am  glad  to  know/' said  I,  with  a 
laugh,  "that  you  pay  Mr.  Fergus  Holmes 
a  large  salary.     A  man  employed  to  dc- 
E  66 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

tect  the  thought  of  some  of  Mr.  Mere 
dith's  paragraphs — " 

ff  Oh,  we  understand  all  about  that/' 
Miss  Phipps  -  Phipps  smiled,  in  return. 
"We  know  his  value,  which  is  very  great 
in  this  particular  matter/' 

"And  does  he  never  fail  ?"  I  asked. 

"  I  presume  he  does,  but  he  never  gives 
up.  Once  he  asked  to  be  allowed  to  con 
sult  with  Mr.  Meredith  before  giving  an 
opinion,  and  we  consented.  He  wrote  to 
the  author,  and  it  turned  out  that  Mr. 
Meredith  had  forgotten  the  paragraph  en 
tirely,  and  couldn't  tell  himself  what  he 
meant.  But  he  was  very  nice  about  it. 
He  gave  us  carte  blanche  to  make  it  mean 
anything  that  would  fit  into  the  rest  of 
the  story." 

We  passed  on  into  another  room. 

"  This  room,"  said  Miss  Phipps-Phipps, 
"is  at  present  devoted  to  the  British 
poets.  There  have  been  a  great  many 
bad  poets  in  Britain  who  have  become 
immortal,  and  we  are  trying  to  make 
them  good.  That  young  man  over  there 
66 


ANDREW    LANG 

with  red  hair  is  rewriting  Burns — the  in 
troduction  we  are  doing  in  our  essay-room. 
The  young  lady  in  blue  glasses  is  doing 
Gay  over  again  ;  and  we  have  intrusted 
our  Lang  edition  of  Herrick  to  the  retired 
clergyman  whom  you  see  sitting  on  that 
settee  by  the  window  with  a  slate  on  his 
lap.  To  show  you  how  completely  we  do 
our  work,  let  me  tell  you  that  in  this  case 
of  Herrick  all  his  poems  were  first  copied 
off  on  slates  by  our  ordinary  copyists,  so 
that  the  clergyman  who  is  doing  them 
over  again  has  only  to  wet  his  finger  to 
rub  out  what  might  strike  some  people  as 
an  immortal  line." 

"  It's  a  splendid  idea  !"  I  cried.  "  But 
wouldn't  a  blackboard  prove  less  expen 
sive  ?" 

"  We  never  consider  expense,"  said  Miss 
Phipps  -  Phipps.  "We  really  do  not 
have  to.  You  see,  with  a  capacity  of 
800,000,000  words  a  year  at  the  rates  for 
Lang,  for  which  we  pay  at  rates  for  the 
unknown,  we  are  left  with  a  margin  of 
profit  which  pleases  our  stockholders  and 
67 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

does  not  arouse  the  cupidity  of  other 
authors." 

"What  a  wonderful  system  !"  said  I. 

"We  think  it  so,"  said  Miss  Phipps- 
Phipps,  placidly. 

"  And  do  you  never  have  any  troubles  ?" 
I  asked. 

"  Oh  yes/'  replied  my  hostess.  "  Only 
last  week  the  Grass  of  Parnassus  and  Blue 
Ballade  employees  rose  up  and  struck  for 
sixpence  more  per  quatrain.  We  locked 
them  out,  and  to  -  day  have  filled  their 
places  with  equally  competent  employees. 
You  can  always  find  plenty  of  unemployed 
and  unpublished  poets  ready  to  step  in. 
Our  prose  hands  do  not  give  us  much 
trouble,  and  our  revisers  never  say  a 
word." 

"  Have  you  any  novelties  in  hand  ?"  I 
asked. 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Miss  Phipps  -  Phipps. 
"We  are  going  to  supersede  Boswell  with 
Lang's  Johnson.  We  are  preparing  a 
Lang  Shakespeare;  and  when  the  copy 
rights  on  Thackeray  and  Dickens  have 
68 


EDITING    "  HEKKICK 


ANDREW    LANG 

expired,  we'll  do  them  all  over  again. 
Then  we  are  experimenting  in  colors  for 
a  new  fairy -book;  and  our  chromatic 
Bibles  will  be  a  great  thing.  We  are  also 
contemplating  an  oifer  to  the  French 
Academy  to  permit  all  the  works  of  its 
members  to  be  issued  as  ours.  I  really 
think  that  Daudet  by  Andrew  Lang  would 
pay.  Hugo  by  Lang  might  prove  too 
much  for  the  British  public,  but  we  shall 
do  it,  because  we  have  confidence  in  our 
selves.  We  shall  issue  the  Philosophy  of 
Schopenhauer  by  Andrew  Lang  next 
week." 

"How  about  our  American  authors?" 
I  queried.  "Are  you  going  to  rewrite 
any  of  them  ?" 

"  Who  are  they  ?"  asked  Miss  Phipps- 
Phipps,  with  an  admirable  expression  of 
ingenuousness. 

"Well,"  said  I,  "myself,  and— ah— 
Edgar  Poe." 

"  Any  poets  ?"  said  Miss  Phipps-Phipps. 

"Some,"  I  answered.  "Myself  and — 
ah — Longfellow." 

69 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Miss  Phipps- 
Phipps,  becoming  somewhat  reserved. 
"  Send  me  your  manuscripts.  I  have 
heard  of  you,  of  course — but — ah — who 
is  Miss  Longfellow  ?" 

I  contented  myself  with  a  reference 
to  the  scenery,  and  then  I  said:  "Miss 
Double  Phipps,  I  wish  you  would  con 
duct  me  into  the  presence  of  Mr.  Lang. 
I  like  him  as  a  manly  man,  and  I  love 
him  for  the  books  he  has  put  forth,  which 
not  only  show  his  manliness,  but  his  ap 
preciation  of  everything  in  letters  that  is 
good." 

"Well,  really,  Miss  Withernp,"  said 
Miss  Phipps  -  Phipps,  "we  don't  know 
where  he  is,  but  we  think — it  is  not  my 
thought,  but  that  of  the  corporation — we 
think  you  will  find  him  playing  golf  at 
St.  Andrews." 

"Thank  you,"  said  I.  "But,  after 
all,"  I  added,  "it  is  not  what  the  cor 
poration  thinks  so  much  as  what  you  as 
an  individual  think.  Where  do  you  be 
lieve  I  may  find  Mr.  Lang  ?" 
70 


ANDREW    LANG 

"  Among  the  Immortals,"  was  the  an 
swer,  spoken  with  enthusiasm. 

And  believing  that  the  lady  was  right, 
I  ceased  to  look  for  Mr.  Lang,  for  in  the 
presence  of  immortals  I  always  feel  my 
self  to  be  foolish. 

Nevertheless,  I  am  very  glad  to  have 
seen  the  Lang  Company  at  AVoking,  and 
I  now  understand  many  things  that  I 
never  understood  before. 


ZOLA 


ZOLA 


To  visit  a  series  of  foreign  celebrities 
at  home  without  including  Emile  Zola  in 
the  list  would  be  very  like  refusing  to 
listen  to  the  lines  of  Hamlet  in  Bacon's 
immortal  tragedy  of  that  name.  Further- N 
more,  to  call  upon  the  justly  famous  novel 
ist  presupposes  a  visit  to  Paris,  which  is 
a  delightful  thing,  even  for  a  lady  journal 
ist.  Hence  it  was  that  on  leaving  Wo- 
king,  after  my  charming  little  glimpse  into 
the  home  life  of  the  Lang  Manuscript' 
Manufacturing  Company,  I  decided  to 
take  a  run  across  the  Channel  and  look 
up  the  Frenchman  of  the  hour.  The  di 
version  had  about  it  an  air  of  adventure 
which  made  it  pleasantly  exciting.  For 
75 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

ten  hours  after  my  arrival  at  Paris  I  did  not 
dare  ask  where  the  novelist  lived,  for  fear 
that  I  might  be  arrested  and  sent  to  DeviFs 
Island  with  Captain  Dreyfus,  or  forced  to 
languish  for  a  year  or  two  at  the  Chateau 
d'lf,  near  Marseilles,  until  the  government 
could  get  a  chance  formally  to  inquire 
why  I  wished  to  know  the  abiding-place 
of  M.  Zola.  There  was  added  to  this  also 
some  apprehension  that  even  if  I  escaped 
the  gendarmes  the  people  themselves  might 
rise  up  and  string  me  to  a  lamp-post  as  a 
suitable  answer  to  so  treasonable  a  ques 
tion. 

To  tell  the  truth,  I  did  not  go  about  my 
business  with  my  usual  nerve  and  aplomb. 
Had  I  represented  only  myself,  I  should  not 
have  hesitated  to  expose  myself  to  any  or 
to  all  danger.  Intrusted  as  I  was,  how 
ever,  with  a  commission  of  great  impor 
tance  to  those  whom  I  serve  at  home,  it 
was  my  duty  to  proceed  cautiously  and 
save  my  life.  I  therefore  went  at  the 
matter  diplomatically.  For  fifty  centimes 
I  induced  a  small  flower-girl,  whom  I  en- 
76 


PKKKTXG    ZOLA 


ZOLA 

countered  in  front  of  the  Cafe  cle  hi  Paix, 
to  inquire  of  the  head  waiter  of  that  estab 
lishment  where  M.  Zola  could  be  met. 
The  tragedy  that  ensued  was  terrible. 
What  became  of  the  child  I  do  not  know, 
but  when,  three  hours  later,  the  troops 
cleared  the  square  in  front  of  the  cafe, 
the  dead  and  wounded  amounted  to  be 
tween  two  hundred  and  fifty  and  three 
hundred,  and  the  china,  tables,  and  inte 
rior  decorations  of  the  cafe  were  strewn 
down  the  Avenue  de  POpera  as  far  as  the 
Rue  de  FEchelle,  and  along  the  boulevard 
to  the  Madeleine.  The  opera-house  itself 
was  not  appreciably  damaged,  although  I 
am  told  that  pieces  of  steak  and  chops  and 
canned  pease  have  since  been  found  cling 
ing  to  the  third-story  windows  of  its  splen 
did  fa9ade. 

My  next  effort  was  even  more  cautious. 
I  bought  a  plain  sheet  of  note-paper,  and 
addressed  it  anonymously  to  the  editor  of 
La  Patrie,  asking  for  the  desired  informa 
tion.  The  next  morning  La  Patrie  an 
nounced  that  if  I  would  send  my  name 
77 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

and  address  to  its  office  the  communica 
tion  would  be  answered  suitably.  My 
caution  was  still  great,  however,  and  the 
name  and  address  I  gave  were  those  of  a 
blanchisseuse  who  ran  a  pretty  little  shop 
on  Hue  Rivoli.  That  night  the  poor 
woman  was  exiled  from  France,  and  the 
block  in  which  she  transacted  business 
demolished  by  a  mob  of  ten  thousand. 

I  was  about  to  give  up,  when  chance 
favored  me.  The  next  evening,  while 
seated  in  my  box  at  the  opera,  the 
door  was  suddenly  opened,  and  a  heavy 
but  rather  handsome-eyed  brunette  of  I 
should  say  fifty  years  of  age  burst  in 
upon  me. 

"Mon  Dieu  !"  she  cried,  as  I  turned. 
"  Save  me  !  Tell  them  I  am  your  chap 
eron,  your  mother,  your  sister — anything 
— only  save  me  !  You  will  never  regret 
it." 

She   had    hardly   uttered   these   words 

when  a  sharp  rap  came  upon  the  door. 

"  Entrez,"  I  cried.     "  Que  voulez-vous, 

messieurs  ?"  I  added,  with  some  asperity, 

78 


CONSULTING  "  LA   PAT  HI  U 


ZOLA 

as  five  hussars  entered,  their  swords  clank 
ing  ominously. 

"  Your  name  ?"  said  one,  who  appeared 
to  be  their  leader. 

"Anne  Warrington  Witherup,  if  you 
refer  to  me,"  said  I,  drawing  myself  up 
proudly.  "  If  you  refer  to  this  lady/' 
I  added,  "she  is  Mrs.  Watkins  Wilbur 
Witherup,  my — ah — my  step-mother.  We 
are  Americans,  and  I  am  a  lady  journal 
ist." 

Fortunately  my  remarks  were  made  in 
French,  and  my  French  was  of  a  kind 
which  was  convincing  proof  that  I  came 
from  Westchester  County. 

A  great  change  came  over  the  intruders. 

"Pardon,  mademoiselle,"  said  the  lead 
er,  with  an  apologetic  bow  to  myself. 
"  We  have  made  the  grsmAfaux  pas.  We 
have  entered  the  wrong  box." 

"  And  may  I  know  the  cause  of  your  un 
warranted  intrusion,"  I  demanded,  "with 
out  referring  the  question  to  the  State 
Department  at  home  ?" 

"  We  sought — we  sought  an  enemy  to 
79 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

France,  mademoiselle,"  said  they.  "'We 
thought  he  entered  here." 

"  I  harbor  only  the  friends  of  France/' 
said  I. 

"  Vive  la  Witherup  !"  cried  the  hussars, 
taking  the  observation  as  a  compliment, 
and  then  chucking  me  under  the  chin  and 
again  apologizing,  with  a  sweeping  bow  to 
my  newly  acquired  step -mother,  they 
withdrew. 

"Well,  mamma,"  said  I,  turning  to  the 
lady  at  my  side,  "perhaps  you  can  shed 
some  light  on  this  mystery.  Who  are 
you  ?" 

"Softly,  if  you  value  your  life,"  came 
the  answer.  "Zola,  c'est  moi!" 

"Mon  Doo!"  said  I.  "Vous?  Bien, 
bien,  bien  !" 

"Speak  in  English,"  he  whispered. 
"Then  I  can  understand." 

"Oh,  I  only  said  well,  well,  well,"  I 
explained.  "  And  you  have  adopted  this 
disguise  ?" 

"Because  I  have  resolved  to  live  long 
enough  to  get  into  the  Academy,"  he  ex- 
80 


ZOLA 

plained.  "  I  cannot  tell  yon  how  grateful 
I  am  for  your  timely  aid.  If  they  had 
canght  me  they  would  have  thrown  me 
down  into  the  midst  of  the  claque." 

"  Come,"  said  I,  rising  and  taking  him 
by  the  hand.  "I  have  come  to  Paris  to 
see  you  at  home.  It  was  my  only  pur 
pose.  I  will  escort  you  thither." 

"Non,  non  !"  he  cried.  "Never  again. 
I  am  much  more  at  home  here,  my  dear 
lady,  much  more.  Pray  sit  down.  Why, 
when  I  left  home  by  a  subterranean  pas 
sage,  perhaps  you  are  not  aware,  over  a 
thousand  members  of  the  National  Guard 
were  singing  the  t  Marseillaise '  on  the 
front  piazza.  Three  thousand  were  dan 
cing  that  shocking  dance,  the  cancan,  in 
my  back  yard,  and  four  regiments  of 
volunteers  were  looking  for  something  to 
eat  in  the  kitchen,  assisted  by  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  petroleuses  to  do  their 
cooking.  All  my  bedroom  furniture  was 
thrown  out  of  the  second-story  windows, 
and  the  manuscripts  of  my  new  novel  were 
being  cut  up  into  souvenirs." 
P  81 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"  Poor  old  mamma  !"  said  I,  taking  him 
by  the  hand.  "  You  can  always  find  com 
fort  in  the  thought  that  you  have  done  a 
noble  action." 

"  It  was  a  pretty  good  scheme,"  replied 
Zola.  "  A  million  pounds  sterling  paid  to 
your  best  advertising  mediums  couldn't 
have  brought  in  a  quarter  the  same 
amount  of  fame  or  notoriety ;  and  then, 
you  see,  it  places  me  on  a  par  with  Hugo, 
who  was  exiled.  That's  really  what  I 
wanted,  Miss  "Witherup.  Hugo  was  a 
poseur,  however,  and  if  he  hadn't  had 
the  luck  to  be  born  before  me — " 

"Ah,"  said  I,  interrupting,  for  I  have 
rather  liked  Hugo.  "And  where  do  you 
wish  to  go  ?" 

"To  America,"  he  replied,  dramati 
cally.  "To  America.  It  is  the  only 
country  in  the  world  where  realism  is  not 
artificial.  You  are  a  simple,  unaffected, 
outspoken  people,  who  can  hate  without 
hating,  can  love  without  marrying,  can 
fight  without  fighting.  I  love  you." 

"  Sir — or  rather  mamma  !"  said  I,  some- 
83 


ZOLA 

what  indignantly,  for  as  a  married  man 
Zola  had  no  right. to  make  a  declaration 
like  that,  even  if  he  is  a  Frenchman. 

"Not  you  as  you,"  he  hastened  to  say, 
"but  you  as  an  American  I  love.  Ah, 
who  is  your  best  publisher,  Miss  Wither- 
up  ?" 

I  shall  not  tell  you  what  I  told  Zola, 
but  they  may  get  his  next  book. 

"  M.  Zola,"  said  I,  placing  great  empha 
sis  on  the  M,  "tell  me,  what  interested 
you  in  Dreyfus  —  humanity  —  or  litera 
ture  ?" 

"Both,"  he  replied;  "they  are  the 
same.  Literature  that  is  not  humanity 
is  not  literature.  Humanity  that  does 
not  provide  literary  people  with  oppor 
tunity  is  not  broad  humanity,  but  special 
and  selfish,  and  therefore  is  not  humanity 
at  all." 

"  Did  Dreyfus  write  to  you  ?"  I  asked. 

"No,"  said  he.  "Nor  I  to  him.  I 
have  no  time  to  write  letters." 

"Then  how  did  it  all  come  about  ?"  I 
demanded. 

83 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"I  take  it  every  day,  and  especially  enjoy 
its  Sunday  edition.  In  fact,  it  is  the  only 
American  newspaper  I  read.  Tell  your 
editor  this,  and  here  is  my  photograph 
and  my  autograph,  and  a  page  of  my 
manuscript  for  reproduction." 

He  took  all  these  things  out  of  his 
basque  as  he  spoke. 

' '  I  will  send  you  to-morrow,"  he  added, 
' ( an  original  sketch  in  black  and  white  of 
my  house,  with  the  receipt  of  my  favorite 
dish,  together  with  a  recommendation  of 
a  nerve  tonic  that  I  use.  With  this  will 
go  a  complete  set  of  my  works  with  a  few 
press  notices  of  the  same,  and  the  prices 
they  bring  on  all  book-stands.  Good-bye. 
God  bless  you !"  he  concluded,  huskily. 
"I  shall  miss  my  step-daughter  as  I  would 
an  only  son.  Adieu  !" 

We  parted,  and  I  returned,  much  af 
fected,  to  my  rooms,  while  he  went  back, 
I  presume,  to  his  mob-ridden  home. 


SIR  HENRY  IRVING 


SIR  HENRY  IRVING 


THE  impression  left  upon  my  mind  by 
my  curious  and  intensely  dramatic  en 
counter  with  Zola  was  of  so  theatric  a 
nature  that  I  resolved  to  get  back  to  con 
ventional  ground  once  more  through  the 
medium  of  the  stage.  I  was  keyed  up  to 
a  high  pitch  of  nervous  excitement  by  my 
unexpected  meeting  with  an  unsuspected 
step-mother,  and  the  easiest  return  to  my 
norm  of  equanimity,  it  seemed  to  me, 
lay  through  the  doors  of  the  greenroom. 
Hence  I  sought  out  London's  only  actor, 
Sir  Henry  Irving. 

I  found  him  a  most  agreeable  gentleman. 
He  received  me  cordially  on  the  stage  of 
his  famous  theatre.  There  was  no  setting 
89 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

of  any  kind.  All  about  us  were  the  bare 
cold  walls  of  the  empty  stage,  and  it  was 
difficult  to  believe  that  this  very  same 
spot,  the  night  before,  had  been  the  scene 
of  brilliant  revels. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Miss  Witherup  ?" 
said  Sir  Henry,  as  I  arrived,  advancing 
with  his  peculiar  stride,  which  reminds 
me  of  dear  old  Dobbin  on  my  father's 
farm.  "It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  welcome 
to  England  so  fair  a  representative  of  so 
fine  a  press." 

"I  wished  to  see  you,  'at  home/  Sir 
Henry,"  I  replied,  not  desiring  to  let  him 
see  how  completely  his  cordiality  had  won 
me,  and  so  affecting  a  coldness  I  was  far 
from  feeling. 

"  That  is  why  I  have  you  here,  madam," 
he  replied.  "  The  stage  is  my  home.  The 
boards  for  me  ;  the  flare  of  the  lime-lights ; 
the  pit ;  the  sweet  family  circle ;  the  au 
ditorium  in  the  dim  distance;  the  foot 
lights — ah,  these  are  the  inspiring  influ 
ences  of  my  life  !  The  old  song  ( Home  Is 
Where  the  Heart  Is'  must,  in  my  case,  be 
90 


SIR    HENRY    IRVING 

revised  to  favor  the  box-office,  and  instead 
of  the  'Old  Oaken  Bucket/  the  song  I 
sing  is  the  song  of  the  '  Old  Trap  Door/ 
Did  you  ever  hear  that  beautiful  poem, 
'The  Song  of  the  Old  Trap  Door'?" 

"No,  Sir  Henry,  I  never  did,"  said  I. 
"I  hope  to,  however." 

"  I  will  do  it  now  for  you,"  he  said ; 
and  assisting  me  over  the  foot-lights  into 
a  box,  he  took  the  centre  of  the  stage, 
ordered  the  calcium  turned  upon  him, 
and  began  : 

"How  dear  to  my  heart  are  the  scenes  of  my 

triumphs, 

In  Hamlet,  Othello,  and  Shylock  as  well ! 
Completely  confounding   the  critics  who  cry 

'  Humphs  !' 

And  casting  o'er  others  a  magical  spell ! 
How  dear  to  my  soul  are  the  fond  recollections 
Of  thunderous  clappings  and  stampings  and 

roars 

As,  bowing  and  scraping  in  many  directions, 
I  sink  out  of   sight  through  the  old  trap 

doors  ! 

The  old  trap  doors,  the  bold  trap  doors, 
That  creaking  and  squeaking  sink  down  thro' 
the  floors  !" 

91 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

I  could  not  restrain  my  enthusiasm 
when  he  had  finished. 

"  Bravo!"  I  cried,  clapping  my  hands 
together  until  my  palms  ached.  "More  !" 

"There  is  no  more,"  said  Sir  Henry, 
with  a  gratified  smile.  "  You  see,  recited 
before  ten  or  twenty  thousand  people  with 
the  same  verve  that  I  put  into  '  Eugene 
Aram/  or  i  Ten  Little  Nigger  Boys/  so 
much  enthusiasm  is  aroused  that  I  cannot 
go  on.  The  applause  never  stops,  so  of 
course  a  second  verse  would  be  a  mere 
waste  of  material." 

"  Quite  so,"  I  observed.  Then  a  thought 
came  to  me  which  I  resolved  to  turn  to 
my  profit.  "  Sir  Henry,"  I  said,  "  I'll  bet 
a  box  of  cigars  against  a  box  for  your  per 
formance  to-night  that  I  can  guess  who 
wrote  that  poem  for  you  in  one  guess." 

"  Done  I"  he  replied,  eagerly. 

"Austin,"  said  I. 

"Make  Miss  Witherup  out  a  ticket  for 
Box  A  for  the  i  Merchant  of  Venice '  to 
night,"  cried  the  famous  actor  to  his  secre 
tary.    "How  the  deuce  did  you  know  ?" 
92 


SIR    HENRY    IRVING 

"  Oh,  that  was  easy,"  I  replied,  much 
gratified  at  having  won  my  wager.  "  I 
don't  believe  any  one  else  could  have 
thought  of  a  rhyme  to  triumphs  like  i  cry 
Humphs'P 

"You  have  wonderful  insight,"  re 
marked  Sir  Henry.  "But  come,  Miss 
Witherup,  I  did  not  mean  to  receive  you 
in  a  box,  or  on  a  bare  stage.  What  is  your 
favorite  style  of  interior  decoration  ?" 

His  question  puzzled  me.  I  did  not 
know  but  that  possibly  Sir  Henry's  words 
were  a  delicate  method  of  suggesting 
luncheon,  and  then  it  occurred  to  me  that 
this  could  not  possibly  be  so  at  that  hour, 
one  o'clock.  Actors  never  eat  at  hours 
which  seem  regular  to  others.  I  hazarded 
an  answer,  however,  and  all  was  made 
clear  at  once. 

"I  have  a  leaning  towards  the  Empire 
style,"  said  I. 

Sir    Henry    turned    immediately    and 

roared    upward    into    the    drops :    "  Hi, 

Billie,  set  the  third  act  of  *  Sans  Gene/ 

and  tell  my  valet  to  get  out  my  Bona- 

93 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

partes.  The  lady  has  a  leaning  towards 
the  Empire.  Excuse  me  for  one  moment, 
Miss  Witherup,"  he  added,  turning  to 
me.  "If  you  will  remain  where  you  are 
until  I  have  the  room  ready  for  you,  I  will 
join  you  there  in  five  minutes." 

The  curtain  was  immediately  lowered, 
and  I  sat  quietly  in  the  box,  as  requested, 
wondering  greatly  what  was  going  to  hap 
pen.  Five  minutes  later  the  curtain  rose 
again,  and  there,  where  all  had  been  bare 
and  cheerless,  I  saw  the  brilliantly  lit 
room  wherein  Bonaparte  as  Emperor  has 
his  interview  with  his  ex-laundress.  It 
was  cosey,  comfortable,  and  perfect  in 
every  detail,  and  while  I  was  admiring, 
who  should  appear  at  the  rear  entrance 
but  Bonaparte  himself  —  or,  rather,  Sir 
Henry  made  up  as  Bonaparte. 

"  Dear  me,  Sir  Henry  !"  I  cried,  delight 
edly.  "You  do  me  too  much  honor." 

"That-  were   impossible,"  he   replied, 

gallantly.    "  Still,  lest  you  be  embarrassed 

by  such  preparations  to  receive  you,  let 

me  say  that  this  is  my  invariable  custom, 

94 


I   SAT   QUIETLY    IN    THE    BOX 


SIR    HENRY    IRVING 

and  when  I  know  in  advance  of  the  tastes 
of  my  callers,  all  is  ready  when  they  ar 
rive.  Unfortunately,  I  have  had  to  keep 
you  waiting  because  I  did  not  know  your 
tastes." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  adapt 
your  scenery  and  personal  make-up  to  the 
likings  of  the  individual  who  calls  ?"  I 
cried,  amazed. 

"Always,"  said  he.  "It  is  easy,  and  I 
think  courteous.  For  instance,  when  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  calls  upon  me 
I  have  Canterbury  Cathedral  set  here,  and 
wear  vestments,  and  receive  him  in  truly 
ecclesiastical  style.  The  organ  is  kept 
going,  and  lines  of  choir -boys,  suitably 
garbed,  pass  constantly  in  and  out. 

"When  the  King  of  Denmark  called  I 
had  the  throne-room  scene  of  ' Hamlet' 
set,  and  we  talked,  with  his  Majesty  sitting 
on  the  throne,  and  myself,  clad  as  the  mel 
ancholy  Prince,  reclining  on  a  rug  before 
him.  He  expressed  himself  as  being  vastly 
entertained.  It  gave  him  pleasure,  and 
was  no  trouble  to  me  beyond  giving  orders 
95 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

to  the  stage-manager.  Then  when  an  old 
boyhood  friend  of  mine  who  had  gone 
wrong  came  to  see  me,,  hearing  that  he 
was  an  inebriate,,  as  well  as  a  thief,  I  re 
ceived  him  in  the  character  of  Dubosc,  in 
the  attic  scene  of  the  ' Lyons  Mail/' 

"  A  very  interesting  plan,"  said  I,  "and 
one  which  I  should  think  would  be  much 
appreciated  by  all." 

"True,"  replied  Sir  Henry.  And  then 
he  laughed.  ' '  It  never  failed  but  once," 
said  he.  "And  then  it  wasn't  my  fault. 
Old  Beerbohm  Tree  came  to  visit  me  one 
morning,  and  I  had  the  graveyard  scene  of 
'  Hamlet '  set,  and  myself  appeared  as  the 
crushed  tragedian.  I  thought  Tree  had 
some  sense  of  humor  and  could  appreci 
ate  the  joke,  but  I  was  mistaken.  He  got 
as  mad  as  a  hatter,  and  started  away  in  a 
rage.  If  he  hadn't  fallen  into  the  grave 
on  the  way  out,  I'd  never  have  had  a 
chance  to  explain  that  I  didn't  mean  any 
thing  by  it." 

By  this  time  I  had  clambered  back  to 
the  stage  again,  and  was  about  to  sit  down 
96 


SIR    HENRY    IRVING 

on  one  of  the  very  handsome  Empire  sofas 
in  the  room,  when  Sir  Henry  gave  a  leap 
of  at  least  two  feet  in  the  air,  and  roared 
with  rage. 

"Send  the  property-man  here  !"  he 
cried,  trembling  all  over  and  turning  white 
in  the  face.  ' '  Send  him  here ;  bring  him 
in  chains.  If  he's  up -stairs,  throw  him 
down;  if  he's  down-stairs,  put  him  in  a 
catapult  and  throw  him  up.  It  matters 
not  how  he  comes,  as  long  as  he  comes." 

I  shrank  back  in  terror.  The  man's 
rage  seemed  almost  ungovernable,  and  I 
observed  that  he  held  a  poker  in  his  hand. 
Up  and  down  the  room  he  strode,  mut 
tering  imprecations  upon  the  property- 
man,  until  I  felt  that  if  I  did  not  wish  to 
see  murder  done  I  would  better  withdraw. 

"  Excuse  me,  Sir  Henry,"  said  I,  rising, 
and  speaking  timidly,  "  I  think  perhaps 
I'd  better  go." 

"  Sit  down  !"  he  retorted,  imperiously, 
pointing  at  the  sofa  with  the  poker.  I  sat 
down,  and  just  then  the  property-man  ar 
rived. 

o  97 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"  Want  me,  S'rennery  ?"  he  said. 

Irving  gazed  at  him,  with  a  terrible 
frown  wrinkling  his  forehead,  for  a  full 
minute,  during  which  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  whole  building  trembled,  and  I  could 
almost  hear  the  seats  in  the  top  gallery 
creak  with  nervousness. 

""Want  you?"  he  retorted,  withering- 
ly.  (i  Yes,  I  want  you — as  an  usher,  per 
haps  ;  as  a  flunky  to  announce  that  a  car 
riage  waits;  as  a  Roman  citizen  to  say 
Hi-hi !  but  as  a  property-man,  never  I" 

There  was  another  ominous  pause,  and 
I  could  see  that  the  sarcasm  of  the  master 
sank  deeply  into  the  soul  of  the  hireling. 

"  Wha — what  'ave  I  done,  S'rennery  ?" 
asked  the  trembling  property-man. 

"WHAT  HAVE  YOU  DONE  ?"  roared  Sir 
Henry.  "  Look  upon  that  poker  and  see !" 

The  man  looked,  and  sank  sobbing  to 
the  floor. 

"Heaven  help  me!"  he  moaned.  "I 
have  a  sick  grandfather,  S'rennery,"  he 
added.  "I  was  up  with  him  all  night." 

The  great  man  immediately  became  all 
98 


SIR    HENRY    IRVING 

tenderness.  Throwing  the  poker  to  one 
side,  lie  sprang  to  where  his  unfortunate 
property-man  lay,  and  raised  him  up. 

"Why  the  devil  didn't  you  say  so  ?"  he 
said,  sympathetically.  "  I  didn't  know 
it,  Henderson,  my  dear  old  boy.  Never 
mind  the  poker.  Let  it  go.  I  forgive 
you  that.  Here,  take  this  £20  note,  and 
don't  come  back  until  your  grandfather  is 
well  again." 

It  was  a  beautiful  scene,  and  so  pathetic 
that  I  almost  wept.  The  property-man 
rose  to  his  feet,  and  putting  the  £20  note 
in  his  pocket,  walked  dejectedly  away. 

Sir  Henry  turned  to  me,  and  said,  his 
voice  husky  with  emotion  :  "Pardon  me, 
Miss  Witherup  !  I  was  provoked.'*' 

"It  was  a  magnificent  scene,  Sir  Henry," 
said  I.  "  But  what  was  the  matter  with  the 
poker?  I  thought  it  rather  a  good  one." 

"It  is,"  said  he,  sitting  down  on  a 
small  chair  and  twiddling  his  thumbs. 
"  But,  you  see,  this  is  an  Empire  scene, 
and  that  confounded  thing  is  a  Marie 
Antoinette  poker.  Why,  if  that  had  hap- 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

pened  at  a  public  performance,  I  should 
have  been  ruined." 

"Might  not  Bonaparte  have  used  a 
Marie  Antoinette  poker  ?"  I  asked,  to 
draw  him  out. 

"  Bonaparte,  Miss  Wither  up,"  he  an 
swered,  "might  have  done  anything  but 
that.  You  see,  by  the  time  he  became 
Emperor  every  bit  of  household  stuff  in 
the  palace  had  been  stolen  by  the  French 
mobs.  Therefore  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
the  palace  was  entirely  refurnished  when 
Bonaparte  came  in,  and  as  at  that  time 
there  was  no  craze  for  Louis  Quinze,  or 
Louis  Seize,  or  Louis  number  this,  that, 
and  the  other,  it  is  not  at  all  probable  that 
Napoleon  would  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
snoop  around  the  second-hand  shops  for 
a  poker  of  that  kind.  Indeed,  it  is  more 
than  probable  that  everything  he  had  in 
the  palace  was  absolutely  new." 

"What  a  wonderful  mind  you  must 
have,  Sir  Henry,  to  think  of  these  things  !" 
I  said,  enthusiastically. 

"  Miss  Witherup,"  said  the  actor-knight, 
100 


SIR    UENRY*<l<&¥;iN3 

impressively,  "  this  is  an  age  of  wonderful 
minds,  and  there  are  so  many  of  them 
that  he  who  wishes  to  rise  above  his  fel 
lows  must  be  careful  of  every  detail. 
Would  I  have  been  a  knight  to-day  had  it 
not  been  for  my  care  of  details  ?  Never. 
It  would  have  gone  to  Willie  Edouin,  or 
to  my  friend  Tree,  or  to  some  other  actor 
of  the  same  grade.  My  principle,  Miss 
Wither  up,  is  not  original.  I  look  after 
the  details,  and  the  results  take  care  of 
themselves.  It  is  the  old  proverb  of  the 
pennies  and  the  pounds  all  over  again." 

"It  is  wisdom/'  I  said,  oracularly.   "But 
it  must  be  wearing." 

"Oh  no,"  said  Sir  Henry,  with  a  gest 
ure  of  self-deprecation.  "  There  are  so 
many  details  that  I  have  had  to  make  up 
a  staff  of  advisers.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
I  am  not  a  man.  I  am  a  combination  of 
men.  In  the  popular  mind  I  embody  the 
wisdom,  the  taste,  the  culture,  the  learn 
ing  of  many.  In  fact,  Miss  Witherup, 
while  I  am  not  London,  London  finds 
artistic  expression  in  me." 
101 


PEOPLE 

"And  you  are  coming  to  America 
again  ?"  I  asked,  rising,  for  I  felt  I  ought 
to  go,  I  was  so  awed  by  the  humble  con 
fession  of  my  host. 

"Some  day/'  said  he.  "When  times 
are  better." 

"Why,  Sir  Henry/'  I  cried,  "you  who 
have  just  given  £20  to  your  property-man 
can  surely  afford  to  cross — " 

"I  referred,  madam,"  he  interrupted, 
"to  times  in  America,  for  I  contemplate 
charging  $5  a  stall  when  next  I  visit  you. 
You  see,  my  next  visit  will  be  the  first  of 
a  series  of  twenty  farewell  seasons  which  I 
propose  to  make  in  the  States,  which  I 
love  dearly.  Don't  forget  that,  please — 
which  /  love  dearly.  I  want  your  people 
to  know." 

"I  shall  not,  Sir  Henry,"  said  I,  hold 
ing  out  my  hand.  "  Good-bye." 

"Say  au  revoir,"  he  replied.  "I  shall 
surely  see  you  at  to  -  night's  perform 
ance." 

And  so  we  parted. 

On  the  way  down  the  Strand,  back  to 
102 


"  'IT   WAS  ALL   ARRANGED   BEFOREHAND,  MISS 


SIR    HENRY    IRVING 

my  rooms,  I  met  the  property-man,  who 
was  evidently  waiting  for  me. 

"Excuse  me,  miss,"  said  he,  "but  you 
saw  ?" 

"Saw  what  ?"  said  I. 

"How  he  called  me  down  about  the 
Marie  Antoinette  poker  ?"  he  replied, 
nervously. 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "I  did." 

"Well,  it  was  all  arranged  beforehand, 
miss,  so  that  you  would  be  impressed  by 
his  love  for  and  careful  attention  to  de 
tails.  That's  all,"  said  he.  "We  other 
fellers  at  the  Lyceum  has  some  pride, 
miss,  and  we  wants  you  to  understand 
that  S'rennery  isn't  the  only  genius  on  the 
programme,  by  good  long  odds.  It's  not 
knowiu'  that  that  made  her  Majesty  the 
Queen  make  her  mistake." 

"I  didn't  know,  Mr.  Henderson,  that 
her  Majesty  had  made  a  mistake,"  said  I, 
coldly. 

"Well,  she  did,  miss.  She  knighted 
S'rennery  as  a  individual,  when  she'd 
ought  to  have  knighted  the  whole  bloomin' 
103 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

theaytre.  There's  others  than  him  as  does 
it !"  he  observed,  proudly.  ' '  King  Some 
body  knighted  a  piece  of  steak.  Why 
couldn't  the  Queen  knight  the  theaytre  ?" 
"Which  struck  me  as  an  idea  of  some 
force,  although  I  am  a  great  admirer  of  a 
man  who,  like  Sir  Henry,  can  dominate 
an  institution  of  such  manifest  excellence. 


IAN    MACLAKEN 


IAN    MACLAKEN 


So  pleased  was  I  with  my  experience  at 
the  Lyceum  Theatre  that,  fearing  to  off 
set  the  effects  upon  my  nerves  of  Sir 
Henry  Irving's  wonderful  cordiality,  I 
made  no  more  visits  to  the  homes  of  celeb 
rities  for  two  weeks,  unless  a  short  call  on 
Li  Hung-Chang  can  be  considered  such. 
Mr.  Chang  was  so  dispirited  over  the  loss 
of  his  yellow  jacket  and  the  partition  of 
the  Chinese  Empire  that  I  could  not  get 
a  word  out  of  him  except  that  he  was  not 
feeling  "welly  well,"  and  that  is  hardly 
sufficient  to  base  an  interview  on  for  a 
practically  inexperienced  lady  journalist 
like  myself. 

I  therefore  returned  to  English  fields 
107 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

again  for  my  next  interview,  and  having 
heard  that  the  Rev.  Ian  Maclaren  was  en 
gaged  on  a  translation  into  English  of  his 
Scottish  stories,  I  took  train  to  Liver 
pool,  first  having  wired  the  famous  object 
of  my  visit  of  my  intention.  He  replied 
instantly  by  telegraph  that  he  was  too 
busy  to  receive  me,  but  I  started  along 
just  the  same.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
world  that  so  upsets  me  as  having  one  of 
my  plans  go  awry,  and  I  certainly  do  not 
intend  to  have  my  equanimity  disturbed 
for  the  insufficient  reason  that  somebody 
else  is  busy.  So  I  wired  back  to  Liver 
pool  as  follows : 

"  Very  sorry,  but  did  not  receive  your  telegram 
until  too  late  to  change  my  plans.  My  trunks 
were  all  packed  and  my  Scotch  lassie  costume 
finished.  Expect  me  on  the  eleven  sixty-seven. 
Will  not  stay  more  than  a  week. 

(Signed) 

"ANNE  WARRINGTON  WITHERUP." 

Dr.   Maclaren  being  a  courteous  man, 
and  I  being  a  lady,  I  felt  confident  that 
108 


IAN    MACLAREN 

this  would  fetch  him ;  and  it  apparently 
did,  for  two  hours  later  I  received  this 
message : 

"  Witherup,  London: 

"  Ain  not  here.   Have  gone  to  Edinburgh.   Do 
not  know  when  I  shall  return. 

(Signed)  "MACLAREN." 

To  this  I  immediately  replied  : 

" Madaren,  Liverpool: 

"All  right.     Will  meet  you  at  Edinburgh,  as 

requested. 

(Signed)  "WiTHEKUP. 

The  reader  will  observe  that  it  takes  a 
smart  British  author  to  escape  from  an 
American  lady  journalist  once  she  has  set 
her  heart  on  interviewing  him.  But  I 
did  not  go  to  Edinburgh.  I  am  young, 
and  have  not  celebrated  my  thirtieth 
birthday  more  than  five  times,  but  I  am 
not  a  gudgeon  ;  so  I  refused  to  be  caught 
by  the  Edinburgh  subterfuge,  and  stuck 
to  my  original  proposition  of  going  to 
Liverpool  on  the  eleven  sixty-seven  ;  and, 
109 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

what  is  more,  I  wore  my  Highland  cos 
tume,  and  all  the  way  down  studied  a 
Scotch  glossary,  until  I  knew  the  differ 
ence  between  such  words  as  dour  and 
hoots  as  well  as  if  I  had  been  born  and 
bred  at  Loch  Macglasgie. 

As  I  had  expected,  Dr.  Maclaren  was 
there,  anxiously  awaiting  developments, 
and  as  I  stepped  out  of  my  carriage  he 
jumped  from  behind  a  huge  trunk  by 
which  he  thought  he  was  concealed,  and 
fled  through  the  Northwestern  Hotel  out 
into  the  street,  and  thence  off  in  the 
direction  of  the  Alexandra  Docks.  I  fol 
lowed  in  hot  pursuit,  and,  by  the  aid  of  a 
handy  hansom,  was  not  long  in  overtaking 
the  unwilling  author.  It  may  be  said  by 
some  that  I  was  rather  too  persistent,  and, 
knowing  that  the  good  Doctor  did  not 
wish  to  be  interviewed,  should  have  re 
linquished  my  quest.  It  was  just  that 
quality  in  Dr.  Maclaren's  make-up  that 
made  me  persist.  There  are  so  few  suc 
cessful  authors  who  may  be  said  to  possess 
the  virtue  of  modesty  in  the  presence  of 
110 


DRESSED    FOR    THE    PART 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"  were  you  running  towards  the  docks 
within  ten  seconds  of  the  arrival  of  my 
train  ?" 

To  the  gentleman's  credit  be  it  said 
that  he  never  hesitated  for  a  moment. 

"  Why  ?"  he  cried,  in  the  manner  of  one 
cut  to  the  heart  by  an  unjust  suspicion. 
"  Why  ?  Because,  madam,  when  you  got 
out  of  that  railway  carriage  I  did  not  see 
you,  and  fearing  that  I  had  mistaken  your 
message,  and  that  instead  of  coming  from 
London  by  rail  you  were  coming  from 
America  by  steamer,  I  hastened  off  down 
towards  the  docks  in  the  hope  of  welcom 
ing  you  to  England,  and  helping  you 
through  the  custom-house.  You  wrong 
me,  madam,  by  thinking  otherwise." 

The  gentleman's  tact  was  so  overwhelm 
ingly  fine  that  I  forgave  him  his  fiction, 
which  was  not  quite  convincing,  and  took 
him  by  the  hand. 

"And  now,"  said  I,  "may  I  see  you  at 
home  ?" 

A  gloomy  cloud  settled  over  the  Doc 
tor's  fine  features. 

112 


THE    I'UKSUIT 


IAN    MACLAREN 

"  That  is  my  embarrassment,"  he  said, 
with  a  deep  sigh.  "I  haven't  any." 

"What?"  I  cried. 

"  I  have  been  evicted,"  he  said,  sadly. 

"You  ?  For  non-payment  of  rent  ?"  I 
asked,  astonished. 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  the  Doctor,  taking  a 
five-pound  note  from  his  pocket  and  throw 
ing  it  into  the  street.  "  1  have  more  money 
than  I  know  what  to  do  with.  For  heresy. 
My  house  belongs  to  a  man  who  does  not 
like  the  doctrines  of  my  books,  and  he  put 
us  out  last  Monday.  That  is  why — " 

"I  understand,"  I  said,  pressing  his 
hand  sympathetically.  "I  am  so  sorry! 
But  cheer  up,  Doctor,"  I  added.  "  I  have 
been  sent  here  by  an  American  newspaper 
that  never  does  anything  by  halves.  I 
have  been  told  to  interview  you  at  home. 
It  must  be  done.  My  paper  spares  no 
expense.  Therefore,  when  I  find  you 
without  a  home  to  be  interviewed  in,  I 
am  authorized  to  provide  you  with  one. 
Come,  let  us  go  and  purchase  a  furnished 
house  somewhere." 
H  113 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

He  looked  at  me,  astonished. 

"Well/'  he  gasped  out  at  length,  "I've 
seen  something  of  American  enterprise, 
but  this  beats  everything." 

"I  suppose  we  can  get  a  furnished 
house  for  $10,000  ?"  I  said. 

"  You  can  rent  all  Liverpool  for  that," 
he  said.  "Suppose,  instead  of  going  to 
that  expense,  we  run  over  to  the  Golf 
Links  ?  Fm  very  much  at  home  there, 
though  I  don't  play  much  of  a  game." 

"Its  atmosphere  is  very  Scottish," 
said  I. 

"It  is  indeed,"  he  replied.  "Indeed, 
it's  too  Scotch  for  me.  I  can  hold  my 
own  with  the  great  bulk  of  Scotcli  dialect 
with  ease,  but  when  it  comes  to  golf  terms 
Fm  a  duffer  from  Dumfries.  There  are 
words  like  '  foozle'  and  <  tee-off'  and 
'  schlaff '  and  <baffy-iron  '  and  l  Glenlivet.' 
I've  had  'em  explained  to  me  many  a 
time  and  oft,  but  they  go  out  of  one  ear 
just  as  fast  as  they  go  in  at  the  other. 
That's  one  reason  why  I've  never  writ 
ten  a  golf  story.  The  game  ought  to 
114 


IAN    MACLAREN 

appeal  strongly  to  me  for  two  reasons — 
the  self-restraint  it  imposes  upon  one's 
vocabulary  of  profane  terms,  and  the 
large  body  of  clerical  persons  who  have 
found  it  adapted  to  their  requirements. 
But  the  idiom  of  it  floors  me ;  and  after 
several  ineffectual  efforts  to  master  the 
mysteries  of  its  glossary,  I  gave  it  up.  I 
can  drive  like  a  professional,  and  my  put 
ting  is  a  dream,  but  I  can't  converse  intel 
ligently  about  it,  and  as  I  have  discovered 
that  half  the  pleasure  of  the  game  lies  in 
talking  of  it  afterwards,  I  have  given  it 
up." 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  the  rail 
way  station  again,  and  a  great  light  as  of 
an  inspiration  lit  up  the  Doctor's  features. 

"  Splendid  idea  I"  he  cried.  ' '  Let  us 
go  into  the  waiting-room  of  the  station, 
Miss  Witherup.  You  can  interview  me 
there.  I  have  just  remembered  that  when 
I  was  lecturing  in  America  the  greater 
part  of  my  time  was  passed  waiting  in 
railway  stations  for  trains  that  varied  in 
lateness  between  two  and  eight  hours,  and 
115 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

I  got  to  feel  quite  at  home  in  them.  I 
doubt  not  that  in  a  few  moments  I  shall 
feel  at  home  in  this  one — and  then,  you 
know,  you  need  not  bother  about  your 
train  back  to  London,  for  it  leaves  from 
this  very  spot  in  twenty  minutes." 

He  looked  at  me  anxiously,  but  he  need 
not  have.  When  I  discovered  that  he 
could  not  master  the  art  of  golfing  suffi 
ciently  to  be  able  to  talk  about  it  at  least, 
he  suddenly  lost  all  interest  to  me.  I 
have  known  so  many  persons  who  were 
actually  only  half  baked  who  could  talk 
intelligently  about  golf,  whether  they 
played  well  or  not — the  tea-table  golfers, 
we  call  them  at  my  home  near  Weehaw- 
ken — that  it  seemed  to  be  nothing  short 
of  sheer  imbecility  for  a  person  to  confess 
to  an  absolute  inability  to  brag  about 
"driving  like  a  professional"  and  "put 
ting  like  a  dream." 

"Very   well,   Doctor,"  said   I.    "This 
will  do  me  quite  as  well.     I'm  tired,  and 
willing  to  go  back,  anyhow.    Don't  bother 
to  wait  for  my  departure." 
116 


AT    HOME 


IAN    MACLAREN 

"Oh,  indeed  !"  lie  cried,  his  face  suffus 
ing  with  pleasure.  "  I  shall  be  delighted 
to  stay.  Nothing  would  so  charm  me  as 
to  see  you  safely  off." 

I  suppose  it  was  well  meant,  but  I 
couldn't  compliment  him  on  his  "put 
ting." 

"Are  you  coming  to  America  again?" 
I  asked. 

"  I  hope  to  some  day,"  he  replied.  "But 
not  to  read  or  to  lecture.  I  am  coming  to 
see  something  of  your  country.  I  wish  to 
write  some  recollections  of  it,  and  just 
now  my  recollections  are  confused.  I 
know  of  course  that  New  York  City  is  the 
heart  of  the  orange  district  of  Florida, 
and  that  Albany  is  the  capital  of  Saratoga. 
I  am  aware  that  Niagara  Falls  is  at  the 
junction  of  the  Hudson  and  the  Missouri, 
and  that  the  Great  Lakes  are  in  the  Adi- 
rondacks,  and  are  well  stocked  with  shad, 
trout,  and  terrapin,  but  of  your  people  I 
know  nothing,  save  that  they  gather  in 
large  audiences  and  pay  large  sums  for 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  how  an  author  en- 
117 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

dures  reading  his  own  stuff.  I  know  that 
you  all  dine  publicly  always,  and  that  your 
men  live  at  clubs  while  the  ladies  are  off 
bicycling  and  voting,  but  what  becomes  of 
the  babies  I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  wish 
to  be  told.  I  leave  them  to  the  consider 
ation  of  my  friend  Caine.  When  I  write 
my  book,  Scooting  through  Schoharis  ;  or, 
Long  Pulls  on  a  Pullman,  I  wish  it  to  be 
the  result  of  personal  observation  and  not 
of  hearsay." 

"A  very  good  idea,"  said  I.  "And 
will  this  be  published  over  your  own 
name  ?" 

"No,  madam,"  he  replied.  "That  is 
where  we  British  authors  who  write  about 
America  make  a  mistake.  We  ruin  our 
selves  if  we  tell  the  truth.  My  book  will 
ostensibly  be  the  work  of  '  Sandy  Scoot- 
mon/" 

" Good  name/' said  I.  "And  a  good 
rhyme  as  well." 

"To  what?"  he  asked. 

"Hoot  mon !"  said  I,  with  a  certain 
dryness  of  manner. 

118 


IAN    MACLAREN 

Just  then  the  train-bell  rang,  and  the 
London  Express  was  ready. 

"Here,  Doctor,"  said  I,  handing  him 
.  the  usual  check  as  I  rose  to  depart.  "  Hero 
is  a  draft  on  London  for  85000.  Our 
thanks  to  go  with  it  for  your  courtesy." 

He  looked  annoyed. 

"I  told  you  I  didn't  wish  any  money," 
said  he,  with  some  asperity.  "  I  have  more 
American  fifty -cent  dollars  now  than  I 
can  get  rid  of.  They  annoy  me." 

And  he  tore  the  check  up.  We  then 
parted,  and  the  train  drew  out  of  the  sta 
tion.  Opposite  me  in  the  carriage  was  a 
young  woman  who  I  thought  might  be 
interested  in  knowing  with  whom  I  had 
been  talking. 

"  Do  you  know  who  that  was  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Very  well  indeed,"  she  replied. 

"  Ian  Maclaren,"  I  said. 

"Not  a  bit  of  it,"  said  she.  "That's 
one  of  our  head  detectives.  We  know 
him  well  in  Liverpool.  Dr.  Maclaren 
employs  him  to  stave  off  American  inter 
viewers." 

119 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

I  stared  at  the  woman,  aghast. 

"I  don't  believe  it/7  I  said.  "It  he'd 
been  a  detective,  he  wouldn't  have  torn 
up  my  check." 

"  Quite  so/'  retorted  the  young  woman, 
and  there  the  conversation  stopped. 

I  wonder  if  she  was  right  ?  If  I  thought 
she  was,  I'd  devote  the  rest  of  my  life  to 
seeing  Ian  Maclaren  at  home ;  but  I  can't 
help  feeling  that  she  was  wrong.  The 
man  was  so  entirely  courteous,  after  I 
finally  cornered  him,  that  I  don't  see  how 
it  could  have  been  any  one  else  than  the 
one  I  sought ;  for,  however  much  one  may 
object  to  this  popular  author's  dialect, 
England  has  sent  us  nothing  finer  in  the 
way  of  a  courteous  gentleman  than  he. 


RUDYAED  KIPLING 


KUDYAED  KIPLING 


AN  endeavor  to  find  Rudyard  Kipling 
at  homo  is  very  much  like  trying  to  dis- 
cover  the  North  Pole.  Most  people  have 
an  idea  that  there  is  a  North  Pole  some 
where,  but  up  to  the  hour  of  going  to 
press  few  have  managed  to  locate  it  defi 
nitely.  The  same  is  true  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
home.  He  has  one,  no  doubt,  somewhere, 
but  exactly  where  that  favored  spot  is,  is 
as  yet  undetermined.  My  first  effort  to 
find  him  was  at  his  residence  in  Vermont, 
but  upon  my  arrival  I  learned  that  he  had 
fled  from  the  Green  Mountain  State  in 
order  to  escape  from  the  autograph-hunt 
ers  who  were  continually  lurking  about 
his  estate.  Next  I  sought  him  at  his  lodg- 
123 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

ings  in  London,  but  the  fog  was  so  thick 
that  if  so  be  he  was  within  I  could  not 
find  him.  Then  taking  a  P.  &  0.  steamer, 
I  went  out  to  Calcutta,  and  thence  to 
Simla.  In  neither  place  was  he  to  be 
found,  and  I  sailed  to  Egypt,  hired  a 
camel,  and  upon  this  ship  of  the  desert 
cruised  down  the  easterly  coast  of  Africa 
to  the  Transvaal,  where  I  was  informed 
that,  while  he  had  been  there  recently, 
Mr.  Kipling  had  returned  to  London.  I 
immediately  turned  about,  and  upon  my 
faithful  and  wobbly  steed  took  a  short-cut 
catacornerwise  across  to  Algiers,  where  I 
was  fortunate  enough  to  intercept  the 
steamer  upon  which  the  object  of  my 
quest  was  sailing  back  to  Britain. 

He  was  travelling  incog,  as  Mr.  Peters, 
but  I  recognized  him  in  a  moment,  not 
only  by  his  vocabulary,  but  by  his  close 
resemblance  to  a  wood-cut  I  had  once 
seen  in  the  advertisement  of  a  famous 
dermatologist,  which  I  had  been  told  was 
a  better  portrait  of  Kipling  than  of  Dr. 
Skinberry  himself,  whose  skill  in  making 
124 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

people  look  unlike  themselves  was  cele 
brated  by  the  publication  of  the  wood-cut 
in  question. 

lie  was  leaning  gracefully  over  the  star 
board  galley  as  I  walked  up  the  gang 
plank.  I  did  not  speak  to  him,  however, 
until  after  the  vessel  had  sailed.  I  am 
too  old  a  hand  at  interviewing  modest 
people  to  be  precipitate,  and  knew  that  if 
I  began  to  talk  to  Mr.  Kipling  about  my 
mission  before  we  started,  he  would  in  all 
probability  sneak  ashore  and  wait  over  a 
steamer  to  escape  me.  Once  started,  he 
was  doomed,  unless  he  should  choose  to 
jump  overboard.  So  I  waited,  and  finally, 
as  Gibraltar  gradually  sank  below  the 
horizon,  I  tackled  him. 

"Mr.  Kipling?"  said  I,  as  we  met  on 
the  lanyard  deck. 

"  Peters/'  said  he,  nervously,  lighting  a 
jinrikisha. 

"All  the  same,"  I  retorted,  taking  out 
my  note-book,  "  I've  come  to  interview 
you  at  home.  Are  you  a  good  sailor  ?" 

"Fin  good  at  whatever  I  try/'  said  he. 
125 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"Therefore  you  can  wager  a  spring  bon 
net  against  a  Kohat  that  I  am  a  good 
sailor." 

"Excuse  me  for  asking,"  said  I.  "It 
was  necessary  to  ascertain.  My  instruc 
tions  are  to  interview  you  at  home.  If 
you  are  a  good  sailor,  then  you  are  at 
home  on  the  sea,  so  we  may  begin.  What 
work  are  you  engaged  on  now  ?" 

"The  hardest  of  my  life,"  he  replied. 
"  I  am  now  trying  to  avoid  an  American 
lady  journalist.  I  know  you  are  an 
American  by  the  Cuban  flag  you  are 
wearing  in  your  button -hole.  I  know 
that  you  are  a  lady,  because  you  wear  a 
bonnet,  which  a  gentleman  would  not  do 
if  he  could.  And  I  know  you  are  a  jour 
nalist,  because  you  have  confessed  it.  But 
for  goodness'  sake,  madam,  address  me  as 
Peters,  and  I  will  talk  on  forever.  If  it 
were  known  on  this  boat  that  I  am  Kip 
ling,  I  should  be  compelled  to  write  auto 
graphs  for  the  balance  of  the  voyage,  and 
I  have  come  away  for  a  rest." 

"Very  well,  Mr.  Peters,"  said  I.  "I 
126 


RUDYAUD    KIPLING 

will  respect  your  wishes.  Why  did  you 
go  to  South  Africa  ?" 

"After  color.  I  tun  writing  a  new 
book,  and  I  needed  color.  There  are 
more  colored  people  in  Africa  than  any 
where  else.  Wherefore — " 

" I  see,"  said  I.  "And  did  you  get 
it?" 

"Humph!"  he  sneered.  "Did  I  get 
it  ?  It  is  evident,  madam,  that  you  have 
not  closely  studied  the  career  of  Kudyard 
— er — Peters.  Did  he  ever  fail  to  get 
anything  he  wanted  ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  replied.  "That's 
what  I  wanted  to  find  out." 

"Well,  you  may  draw  your  own  con 
clusions,"  he  retorted,  "when  I  speak 
that  beautiful  and  expressive  American 
word  'Nit.'" 

I  put  the  word  down  for  future  use.  It 
is  always  well  for  an  American  to  make 
use  of  her  own  language  as  far  as  is  pos 
sible,  and  nowhere  can  one  gain  a  better 
idea  of  what  is  distinctively  American  than 
from  a  study  of  English  authors  Avho  use 
127 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

Americanisms  with  an  apology — paid  for, 
no  doubt,  at  space  rates. 

"  Have  you  been  at  work  on  the  ocean  ?" 
I  inquired. 

"No,"  said  he.  "  Why  should  I  work 
on  the  ocean  ?  I  can't  improve  the  ocean." 

"Excuse  me/"  said  I.  "I  didn't  know 
that  you  were  a  purist." 

"  I'm  not,"  said  he.     "  Fm  a  Peters." 

There  was  a  pause,  and  I  began  to  sus 
pect  that  beneath  his  suave  exterior  Mr. 
Kipling  concealed  a  certain  capacity  for 
being  disagreeable. 

"I  didn't  know,"  I  said,  "but  that  you 
had  spent  some  of  your  time  interview 
ing  the  boilers  or  the  engines  of  the  ship. 
A  man  who  can  make  a  locomotive  over 
into  an  attractive  conversationalist  ought 
to  be  able  to  make  a  donkey-engine,  for 
instance,  on  shipboard,  seem  less  like  a 
noisy  jackass  than  it  is." 

"  Good  !"  he  cried,  his  face  lighting  up. 

"  There's  an  idea  there.     Gad  !     I'll  write 

a  poem  on  the  donkey-engine  as  a  sort 

of  companion  to  my  McAndrews  Hymn, 

128 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

and,   what   is  more,  I  will  acknowledge 
my  debt  to  you  for  suggesting  the  idea/' 

"I'm  much  obliged,  Mr. — er — Peters," 
said  I,  coldly,  "but  you  needn't.  You 
are  welcome  to  the  idea,  but  I  prefer  to 
make  my  own  name  for  myself.  If  you 
put  me  in  one  of  your  books,  I  should  be 
come  immortal ;  and  while  I  wish  to  be 
come  immortal,  I  prefer  to  do  it  without 
outside  assistance." 

Peters,  ne  Kipling,  immediately  melted. 

"If  you  were  a  man,"  said  he,  "Fd 
slap  you  on  the  back  and  call  the  steward 
to  ask  you  what  you'd  have." 

"Thank  you,"  said  I.  "Under  the 
circumstances,  I  am  glad  I  am  not  a  man. 
I  do  not  wish  to  be  slapped  on  the  back, 
even  by  a  British  author.  But  if  you 
really  wish  to  repay  me  for  my  suggestion, 
drop  your  unnatural  modesty  and  let  me 
interview  you  frankly.  Tell  me  what  you 
think  —  if  you  ever  do  think.  You've 
been  so  meteoric  that  one  naturally  credits 
you  with  more  heart  and  spontaneity  than 
thought  and  care." 
I  V29 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

«  Very  well,"  said  he.  "  Let  the  cross- 
examination  begin." 

"  Do  you  ride  a  bicycle  ?"  I  asked. 

"Not  at  sea,"  he  replied. 

"What  is  your  favorite  wheel?"  I 
asked. 

"  The  last  that  is  sent  me  by  the  maker," 
he  answered. 

"Do  you  use  any  tonic — hair,  health, 
or  otherwise — which  you  particularly  rec 
ommend  to  authors  ?"  I  asked. 

"I  must  refuse  to  answer  that  question 
until  I  have  received  the  usual  check," 
said  Mr. — er — Peters. 

"Do  you  still  hold  with  the  Spanish 
that  Americans  are  pigs,  and  that  New 
York  is  a  trough  ?"  I  asked. 

"  There  are  exceptions,  and  when  I  last 
saw  New  York  I  was  not  a  conscious  wit 
ness  of  any  particularly  strong  devotion 
to  the  pen,"  he  answered,  uneasily  and 
evasively. 

"Do  you  like  the  American  climate  ?" 
I  asked. 

"  Is  there  such  a  thing  ?"  he  asked,  in 
130 


RUDYABD    KIPLING 

return.  "  If  there  is,  I  didn't  see  it.  You 
Americans  are  in  the  experimental  stage 
of  existence  in  weather  as  in  government. 
I  don't  think  you  have  as  yet  settled  upon 
any  settled  climate.  My  experience  has 
been  that  during  any  week  in  any  season 
of  the  year  you  have  a  different  climate 
for  each  day.  I  can  say  this,  however, 
that  your  changes  are  such  that  the  aver 
age  is  uncomfortable.  It  is  hot  one  day 
and  cold  the  next ;  baking  the  third  ;  win 
try  the  fourth  ;  humid  the  fifth  ;  dry  the 
sixth  ;  and  on  the  seventh  you  begin  with 
sunshine  before  breakfast,  follow  it  up 
with  rain  before  luncheon,  and  a  sleigh 
ride  after  dinner." 

It  was  evident  that  Mr.  —  er — Peters 
had  not  lost  his  powers  of  observation. 

"'Why  have  you  left  Vermont,  Mr. 
Kipling  ?"  I  asked. 

"Peters!"  he  remonstrated,  in  a  be 
seeching  whisper. 

"Excuse  me,  Mr.  Peters,"  said  I. 
"Why  have  you  left  Vermont,  Mr. 
Peters  ?'" 

181 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"  That  is  a  delicate  question,  madam/' 
he  replied.  "Are  you  not  aware  that  my 
house  is  still  in  the  market  ?" 

"I  am  instructed,"  said  I,  drawing  out 
my  check-book,  "to  get  an  answer  to  any 
question  I  may  choose  to  ask,  at  any  cost. 
If  you  fear  to  reply  because  it  may  prevent 
a  sale  of  your  house,  I  will  buy  the  house 
at  your  own  price." 

"Forty  thousand  dollars,"  said  he. 
"It's  worth  twenty  thousand,  but  in  the 
hurry  of  my  departure  I  left  fifty  thou 
sand  dollars'  worth  of  notes  stored  away 
in  the  attic." 

I  drew  and  handed  him  the  check. 

"Now  that  your  house  is  sold,"  said  I, 
"why,  Mr.  Peters,  did  you  leave  Ver 
mont  ?" 

"For  several  reasons,"  he  replied,  put 
ting  the  check  in  his  pocket,  and  relight 
ing  his  jinrikisha,  which  had  gone  out. 
"  In  the  first  place,  it  was  seme  distance 
from  town.  I  thought,  when  I  built  the 
house,  that  I  could  go  to  New  York  every 
morning  and  come  back  at  night.  My 
132 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

notion  was  correct,  but  I  discovered  after 
wards  that  while  I  could  go  to  New  York 
by  day  and  return  by  night,  there  was  not 
more  than  five  minutes  between  the  trains 
I  had  to  take  to  do  it.  Then  there  was  a 
certain  amount  of  human  sympathy  in 
volved.  The  postman  was  fairly  bent  un 
der  the  weight  of  the  letters  I  received 
asking  for  autographs.  He  came  twice  a 
day,  and  each  time  the  poor  chap  had  to 
carry  a  ton  of  requests  for  autographs." 

"Still,  you  needn't  have  replied  to 
them,"  I  said. 

"Oh,  I  never  tried  to,"  he  said.  "It 
was  the  postman  who  aroused  my  sym 
pathy.  " 

"  But  you  didn't  give  up  trying  to  live 
in  your  own  house  that  had  cost  you 
$20,000  for  that  ?"  I  said. 

"Well,  no,"  he  answered.  "Frankly, 
I  didn't.  There  were  other  drawbacks. 
You  Americans  are  too  fond  of  collecting 
things.  For  instance,  I  went  to  a  recep 
tion  one  night  in  Boston,  and  I  wore  a 
new  dress-suit,  and,  by  Jove  !  when  I  got 
133 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

home  and  took  my  coat  off  I  found  that 
the  tails  had  been  cut  off — I  presume  by 
souvenir  -  hunters  !  Every  mail  brought 
countless  requests  for  locks  of  my  hair; 
and  every  week,  when  iny  laundry  came 
back,  there  were  at  least  a  dozen  things 
of  one  kind  or  another  missing,  which  I 
afterwards  learned  had  been  stolen  off  the 
line  by  collectors  of  literary  relics.  Then 
the  kodak  fiends,  that  continually  lurked 
about  behind  bushes  and  up  in  the  trees 
and  under  the  piazzas,  were  a  most  infer 
nal  nuisance.  I  dare  say  there  are  50,000 
unauthorized  photographs  of  myself  in 
existence  to-day.  Even  these  I  might 
have  endured,  not  to  mention  visitors  who 
daily  came  to  my  home  to  tell  me  how 
much  they  had  enjoyed  my  books.  Ten 
or  a  dozen  of  these  people  are  gratifying, 
but  when  you  come  down  to  breakfast  and 
find  a  line  stretching  all  the  way  from 
your  front  door  to  the  railway  station, 
and  excursion  trains  coming  in  loaded  to 
the  full  with  others  every  hour,  it  ceases 
to  be  pleasant  and  interferes  seriously 
134 


^          ej=f^E^qj  1* 


RUDYARD    KIPLING 

with  one's  work.  However,  I  never  mur 
mured  until  one  day  I  observed  a  gang  of 
carpenters  at  work  on  the  other  side  of 
the  street,  putting  up  a  curious -looking 
structure  which  resembled  nothing  I  had 
ever  seen  before.  When  I  had  made  in 
quiries  I  learned  that  an  enterprising 
circus-manager  had  secured  a  lease  of  the 
place  for  the  summer,  and  was  erecting  a 
grand-stand  for  people  who  came  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  me  to  sit  on. 

"It  was  then  that  the  thread  of  my 
patience  snapped.  I  don't  mind  writing 
autographs  for  eight  hours  every  day  ;  I 
don't  mind  being  kodaked  if  it  makes 
others  happy  ;  and  if  any  Boston  relic- 
hunter  finds  comfort  in  possessing  the 
tails  of  my  dress  -  coat  he  is  welcome  to 
them ;  but  I  can't  go  being  turned  into  a 
side-show  for  the  delectation  of  a  circus- 
loving  people,  so  I  got  out." 

I  was  silent.  I  knew  precisely  what 
he  had  suffered,  and  could  not  blame 
him. 

"  I  suppose,"  I  said,  sympathetically, 
135 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"that  this  means   that  you   will  never 
return." 

"Oh  no,"  said  he.  "I  expect  to  go 
back  some  day,  but  not  until  public  in 
terest  in  my  personal  appearance  has  died 
out.  Some  time  somebody  will  discover 
some  new  kind  of  a  freak  to  interest  you 
people,  and  when  that  happens  I  will  vent 
ure  back  for  a  day  or  two,  but  until  then  I 
think  I  will  stay  over  here,  where  an  illus 
trious  personage  can  have  a  fit  in  the  street, 
if  he  wants  to,  without  attracting  any 
notice  whatsoever.  There  are  so  many 
great  people  over  here,  like  myself  and 
Lord  Salisbury  and  Emperor  William, 
that  fame  doesn't  distinguish  a  man  at 
all,  and  it  is  possible  to  be  happy  though 
illustrious,  and  to  enjoy  a  certain  degree 
of  privacy." 

Just  then  the  English  coast  hove  in 
sight,  and  Mr.  Kipling  went  below  to  pack 
up  his  mullagatawny,  while  I  drew  close 
to  the  rail  and  reflected  upon  certain  pe 
culiarities  of  my  own  people. 

They  certainly  do  love  a  circus  ! 
136 


THE    DE    RESZKES 


THE    DE    RESZKES 


OK  my  return  to  London  I  received  a 
message  from  my  principals  at  home  sug 
gesting  that,  in  view  of  the  possibilities 
of  opera  next  winter,  an  interview  with 
the  famous  brothers  De  Reszke  would  be 
interesting  to  the  readers  of  the  United 
States.  I  immediately  started  for  War 
saw,  where,  I  was  given  to  understand, 
these  wonderful  operatic  stars  were  spend 
ing  the  summer  on  their  justly  famous 
stock-farm. 

I  arrived  late  at  night,  and  put  up  com 
fortably  at  a  small  and  inexpensive  inn  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  city.  Mine  host  was 
a  jolly  old  Polander,  who,  having  emi 
grated  to  and  then  returned  from  Amer- 
139 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

ica,  spoke  English  almost  as  well  as  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States.  He  was 
very  cordial,  and  assigned  me  the  best 
room  in  his  house  without  a  murmur  or  a 
tip.  Anxious  to  learn  how  genius  is  re 
spected  in  its  own  country,  I  inquired  of 
him  if  he  knew  where  the  De  Reszkes 
lived,  and  what  kind  of  people  they  were. 

"Oh,  yais,"  he  said,  "I  know  dem 
De  Keszkes  ferry  veil  already.  Dey  haf 
one  big  farm  back  on  dher  hills.  I  gets 
my  butter  undt  eggs  from  dhose  De 
Reszkes." 

" Indeed!"  said  I,  somewhat  amused. 
"They  are  fine  fellows,  both  of  them." 

"Yais,"  he  said.  "I  like  dern  veil 
enough.  Deir  butter  is  goot,  undt  deir 
eggs  is  goot,  but  deir  milk  is  alvays 
skimmed.  I  do  not  understandt  it  vy  dey 
should t  skim  deir  milk." 

ei  I  presume,"  said  I,  "  that  their  voices 
are  in  good  condition  ?" 

"Veil,"  he  replied,  "I  dondt  know 
much  apout  deir  foices.  I  dondt  effer 
speak  to  dem  much.  Ven  I  saw  dem 
140 


THE    DE    KESZKES 

last  cley  could  make  demselves  hcardt. 
But,  you  know,  dey  dondt  necdt  deir 
foices  much  already.  Dey  keep  a  man 
to  sell  deir  butter  undt  eggs." 

"But  of  course  you  know  that  they  are 
renowned  for  their  vocal  powers,"  I  sug 
gested. 

"I  dondt  know  much  apout  'em,"  he 
said,  simply.  "Dey  go  avay  for  a  year 
or  two  every  six  months,  undt  dey  come 
back  mit  plenty  ohf  money  ohf  one  kind 
undt  anodder,  but  I  subbosed  dey  made  it 
all  oudt  ohf  butter  undt  eggs.  Vot  is  dose 
focal  bowers  you  iss  dalking  apout  ?  Iss 
dot  some  new  kindt  ohf  chi<nrens  ?" 

OO 

I  gave  the  landlord  up  as  a  difficult 
case ;  but  the  next  day,  when  I  called  at 
the  castle  of  the  two  famous  singers,  I 
perceived  why  it  was  that  in  their  own 
land  they  were  known  chiefly  as  farmers. 

"  The  De  Reszkes  ?"  said  I,  as  I  entered 
their  castle,  some  ten  miles  out  of  War 
saw,  and  held  out  my  hands  for  the  broth 
ers  to  clasp. 

It  was  a  superb  building,  with  a  fagade 
141 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

of  imposing  quality,  and  not,  as  I  had 
supposed,  built  of  painted  canvas,  but  of 
granite.  To  be  sure,  there  were  romantic 
little  balconies  distributed  about  it  for 
Jean  to  practise  on,  with  here  and  there 
a  dark,  forbidding  casement  which  sug 
gested  the  most  base  of  Edouard's  bass 
notes;  but  generally  the  castle  suggested 
anything  but  the  flimsy  structure  of  a 
grand-opera  scene. 

Their  reply  was  instant,  and  I  shall 
never  forget  the  magnificent  harmony  of 
their  tones  as  they  sang  in  unison : 

"Miss  Wither  up— Miss  Wi-hith-hith- 
erup  ?"  they  inquired. 

"  The  sa-ha-ha-hay-hame  !"  I  sang,  and 
I  haven't  a  bad  voice  at  all. 

"We  are  glad,"  sang  Jean,  in  tenor 
tones. 

"We  are  glad,"  echoed  Edouard,  only 
in  bass  notes,  and  then  they  joined  to 
gether  in,  "We  are  glad,  we  are  glad,  to 
see-hee-hee-hee  you." 

I  wish  I  could  write  music,  so  that  I 
could  convey  the  delightful  harmonies  of 
142 


IT   WAS  A   SUPEKB  BUILDING 


THE    DE    KESZKES 

the  moment  to  the  reader's  ear,  particu 
larly  the  last  phrase.  If  a  typographical 
subterfuge  may  be  employed,  it  went  like 
this: 

"To  see— 

lice — 

hee— 

hee 

you  !" 

Start  on  C,  and  go  a  note  lower  on  each 
line,  and  you  will  get  some  idea  of  the  ex 
quisite  musical  phrasing  of  my  greeting. 

"Excuse  me,  Jean,"  said  Edouard, 
"but  we  are  forgetting  ourselves.  It  is 
only  abroad  that  we  arc  singers.  Here 
we  are  farmers,  and  not  even  yodellists." 

"  True,"  said  Jean.  "  Miss  Witherup, 
we  must  apologize.  We  recognized  in  you 
a  matinee  girl  from  New  York,  and  suc 
cumbed  to  the  temptation  to  try  to  im 
press  you ;  but  here  we  are  not  operatic 
people.  We  run  a  farm.  Do  you  come 
to  interview  us  as  singers  or  farmers  ?" 
143 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"  I've  come  to  interview  you  in  any  old 
way  you  please,"  said  I.  "I  want  to  see 
you  at  home." 

"Well,  here  we  are/'  said  Edouard, 
with  one  of  his  most  fascinating  smiles. 
"Look  at  us." 

"Tell  me,"  said  I,  "how  did  you  know 
I  was  a  matinee  girl  ?  You  just  said  you 
recognized  me  as  one." 

"Easy!"  laughed  Jean,  with  a  wink  at 
his  brother.  "  By  the  size  of  your  hat." 

"Ah,  but  you  said  from  the  United 
States,"  I  urged.  "How  did  you  know 
that  ?  Don't  English  matinee  girls  wear 
large  hats  ?" 

"  Yes,"  returned  Edouard,  with  a  cour 
teous  bow,  "but  yours  is  in  exquisite 
taste." 

Just  then  the  telephone-bell  rang,  and 
Jean  ran  to  the  receiver.  Edouard  looked 
a  trifle  uneasy,  and  1  kept  silent. 

"What  is  it,  Jean?"  Edouard  asked  in 
a  moment. 

"It's  a  message  from  the  Countess  Po- 
niatowska.  She  says  the  milk  this  morn- 
144 


THE    DE    RESZKES 

ing  was  sour.  Those  cows  must  have 
been  at  the  green  apples  again,"  replied 
the  tenor,  moodily. 

"It's  very  annoying,"  put  in  Edouard, 
impatiently.  "That  stage -carpenter  we 
brought  over  from  the  Metropolitan  isn't 
worth  a  cent.  I  told  him  to  build  a  coop 
large  enough  for  those  cows  to  run  around 
in,  and  strong  enough  to  keep  them  from 
breaking  out  and  eating  the  apples,  and 
this  is  the  third  time  they've  done  this.  I 
really  think  we  ought  to  send  him  back  to 
New  York.  He'd  make  a  good  target  for 
the  gunners  to  shoot  at  over  at  the  Navy 
Yard." 

"What  are  the  prospects  for  grand 
opera  next  year,  Mr.  De  Reszke  ?"  I  asked, 
after  a  slight  pause. 

"  Pretty  good/'  replied  Jean,  absent 
ly.  "Of  course,  if  the  milk  was  sour, 
we'll  have  to  send  another  can  over  to  the 
Countess." 

"I  suppose  so,"  said  Edouard;  "but 
the  thing's  got  to  stop.  I  don't  mind 
losing  a  little  money  on  this  farm  at  the 
K  145 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

outset,  but  when  it  costs  us  $1500  a  quart 
to  raise  milk,  I  don't  much  like  having  to 
provide  substitute  quarts,  when  it  sours, 
at  sixteen  cents  a  gallon,  just  because  a 
fool  of  a  carpenter  can't  build  a  cow-coop 
strong  enough  to  keep  the  beasts  away 
from  green  apples." 

I  had  to  laugh  quietly;  for,  as  the 
daughter  of  a  farmer,  I  could  see  that 
these  spoiled  children  of  fortune  knew 
as  much  about  farming  as  I  knew  about 
building  light-houses. 

"Perhaps,"  I  suggested,  "it  wasn't  the 
green  apples  that  soured  the  milk.  It 
may  have  been  the  thunder-storm  last 
night  that  did  it." 

"  That  can't  be,"  said  Jean,  positively. 
"  We  have  provided  against  that.  All  our 
cows  have  lightning-rods  on  them;  we 
bought  them  from  a  Connecticut  man, 
who  was  in  here  the  other  day,  for  $500 
apiece,  so  you  see  no  electrical  disturb 
ance  could  possibly  affect  them.  It  must 
have  been  the  apples." 

"I  suppose  I  had  better  tell  Plangon 
146 


THE    DE    RESZKES 

to  take  the  extra  quart  over  himself  at 
once  and  explain  to  the  Countess,"  said 
Edonard. 

"Plaiigon  here  too?"  I  cried,  in  sheer 
delight. 

"Yes;  but  it's  a  secret,"  said  Jean. 
"The  whole  troupe  is  here.  Plane. on  has 
charge  of  the  cows,  but  nobody  knows  it. 
I  wouldn't  send  Planc.on,"  he  added,  re 
verting  to  Edouard's  suggestion.  "He'll 
stay  over  there  all  day  singing  duets  with 
the  ladies.  Why  not  ask  Scalchi  to  attend 
to  it  ?  She's  going  to  town  after  the  tur 
nip  seed  this  morning,  and  she  can  stop 
on  her  way." 

"  All  right,"  said  Edouard ;  "  I  imagine 
that  will  be  better.  Plangon's  got  all  he 
can  do  to  get  the  hay  in,  anyhow." 

Edouard  looked  at  me  and  laughed. 

"We  are  hard  workers  here,  Miss  With- 
erup,"  he  cried.  "'And  I  can  tell  you  what 
it  is,  there  is  no  business  on  earth  so  ex 
acting  and  yet  so  delightful  as  farming." 

"  And  you  are  all  in  it  together  ?"  I  said. 

"  Yes.  You  see,  last  time  we  were  all 
147 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

in  New  York  we  were  the  most  harmoni 
ous  opera  troupe  there  ever  was/"  Edouard 
explained,  "and  it  was  such  a  novel  sit 
uation  that  Jean  and  I  invited  them  all 
here  for  the  farming  season,  and  have  put 
the  various  branches  of  the  work  into  the 
hands  of  our  guests,  we  two  retaining  ex 
ecutive  control/' 

"Delightful  !"  I  cried. 

"  Melba  has  charge  of  the  dairy,  and 
does  a  great  deal  of  satisfactory  rehearsing 
while  churning  the  butter.  You  should 
hear  the  Spinning  Song  from  ' Faust'  as 
she  does  it  to  the  accompaniment  of  a 
churn.  Magnificent  \" 

"And  you  ought  to  see  little  Russitano 
and  Cremonini  rounding  up  the  chickens 
every  night,  while  Bauermeister  collects 
the  eggs,"  put  in  Jean;  "and  Planc,on 
milking  the  cows  after  Maurel  has  called 
them  home  ;  and  that  huge  old  chap  Ta- 
magno  pushing  the  lawn-mower  up  and 
down  the  hay-fields  through  the  summer 
sun — those  are  sights  that  even  the  gods 
rarely  witness." 

148 


MKLliA,    THE    DAIRY    MAID 


THE    DE    RESZKKS 

"It  must  be  a  picture  !"  I  ejaculated, 
with  enthusiasm.  "And  Ancona  ?  Is 
he  with  you  ?" 

"  He  is,  and  he's  as  useful  a  man  as 
ever  was,''  said  Edouard.  "  He  is  our 
head  ploughboy.  And  Calve's  vegetable 
garden — well,  Jean  and  I  do  not  wish  to 
seem  vain,  Miss  Witherup,  but  really  if 
there  is  a  vegetable  garden  in  the  world 
that  produces  cabbages  that  are  cabbages, 
and  artichokes  that  are  artichokes,  and 
Bermuda  potatoes  that  are  Bermuda  pota 
toes,  it  is  Calve's  garden  right  here." 

"And  what  becomes  of  all  the  product 
of  your  farm  ?"  I  asked. 

"  We  sell  it  all,"  said  Jean.  "  We  sup 
ply  the  Czar  of  Russia  with  green  pease 
and  radishes.  The  Emperor  of  Germany 
buys  all  his  asparagus  from  us  ;  and  we 
have  secured  the  broiled-chicken  contract 
for  the  Austrian  court  for  the  next  five 
years." 

"  And  you  don't  feel,  Mr.  De  Reszke," 
I  asked,  "that  all  this  interferes  with 
your  work  ?" 

149 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"It  is  my  work,"  replied  the  great 
tenor. 

"Then  why,"  I  queried,  "do  you  not 
take  it  up  exclusively  ?  Singing  in  grand 
opera  must  be  very  exhausting." 

"It  is,"  sighed  Jean.  "It  is  indeed. 
Siegfried  is  harder  than  haying,  and  I 
would  rather  shear  six  hundred  sheep  than 
sing  Tristan ;  but,  alas,  Edouard  and  I  can 
not  afford  to  give  it  up,  for  if  we  did,  what 
would  become  of  our  farm  ?  The  estimated 
expense  of  producing  one  can  of  pease  on 
this  estate,  Miss  Witherup,  is  $300,  but  we 
have  to  let  it  go  at  50  cents.  Asparagus  costs 
us  $14.80  a  spear.  A  lamb  chop  from  the 
De  Reszke  Lambery  sells  for  60  cents  in  a 
Paris  restaurant,  but  it  costs  us  $97  a 
pound  to  raise  them.  So  you  see  why  it 
is  that  my  brother  and  I  still  appear  peri 
odically  in  public,  and  also  why  it  is  that 
our  services  arc  very  expensive.  We 
didn't  want  to  take  the  gross  receipts  of 
opera  the  last  time  we  were  in  New  York, 
and  when  the  company  went  to  the  waJl 
we'd  have  gladly  compromised  for  99 
150 


THE    DE    RESZKES 

cents  on  the  dollar,  had  we  not  at  that 
very  time  received  our  semi-annual  state 
ment  from  the  agent  of  our  farm,  show 
ing  an  expenditure  of  $800,000,  as  against 
gross  receipts  of  $1650." 

"  Sixteen  hundred  and  thirty  dollars," 
said  Edouard,  correcting  his  brother. 
"We  had  to  deduct  $20  from  our  bill 
against  Queen  Victoria  for  those  pheas 
ants'  eggs  we  sent  to  Windsor.  Three 
crates  of  them  turned  out  to  be  Shanghai 
roosters." 

"True,"  said  Jean.  "I  had  forgot 
ten." 

I  rose,  and  after  presenting  the  singers 
with  the  usual  check  and  my  cordial 
thanks  for  their  hospitality,  prepared  to 
take  my  leave. 

"You  must  have  a  souvenir  of  your 
visit,  Miss  Witherup,"  said  Jean.  "  What 
shall  it  be — a  radish  or  an  Alderney  cow  ? 
They  both  cost  us  about  the  same." 

"Thank  you,"  I  said.  "I  do  not  eat 
radishes,  and  I  have  no  place  to  keep  a 
cow  ;  but  if  you  will  sing  the  '  Lohengrin' 
151 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

farewell  for  me,  it  will  rest  with  me 
forever." 

The  brothers  laughed. 

"You  ask  too  much!"  they  cried. 
"  That  would  be  like  giving  you  $10,000." 

"Oh,  very  well/'  said  I.  "Til  take 
the  will  for  the  deed." 

"We'll  send  you  our  pictures  auto 
graphed/'  said  Edouard.  "How  will  that 
do  ?" 

"I  shall  be  delighted/'  I  replied,  as  I 
bowed  myself  out. 

"You  can  use  'em  to  illustrate  the  in 
terview  with,"  Jean  called  out  after  me. 

And  so  I  left  them.  I  hope  their  anx 
iety  over  their  crops  will  not  damage  their 
"focal  bowers/'  as  the  landlord  called 
them,  for  with  their  voices  gone  I  believe 
their  farm  would  prove  a  good  deal  of  a 
burden. 


HENRYK    SIEKKIEWICZ 


HENKYK   SIENKIEWICZ 


Ox  my  way  back  from  the  Polish  home 
of  the  De  Reszkes  it  occurred  to  me  that 
it  would  be  worth  while  to  stop  over  a 
day  or  so  and  interview  Mr.  Sienkiewicz. 
There  were  a  great  many  things  I  desired 
to  ask  that  gentleman,  and  he  is  so  com 
paratively  unknown  a  personality  that  I 
thought  a  word  or  two  with  him  would  be 
interesting. 

I  had  great  difficulty  in  finding  him, 
for  the  very  simple  reason  that,  like 
most  other  people,  I  did  not  know  how 
to  ask  for  him.  Ordinarily  I  can  go 
into  a  shop  and  ask  where  the  person  I 
wish  to  see  may  chance  to  dwell.  But 
when  a  man  has  a  name  like  Sienkiewicz, 
155 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

the  task  is  not  an  easy  one.  When  it  is 
remembered  that  poets  in  various  parts  of 
the  United  States  have  made  the  name 
rhyme  to  such  words  as  sticks,  fizz,  and 
even  vichy,  it  will  be  seen  that  it  requires 
an  unusually  bold  person  to  try  to  speak 
it  in  a  country  where  words  of  that  nature 
are  considered  as  easy  to  pronounce  as 
Jones  or  Smith  would  be  in  my  own  be 
loved  land.  However,  I  was  not  to  be 
daunted,  and  set  about  my  self-appointed 
task  without  hesitation.  My  first  effort 
was  to  seek  information  from  my  friends 
the  De  Reszkes,  and  I  telegraphed  them  : 
"Where  can  I  find  Sienkiewicz  ?  Please 
answer/'1  With  their  usual  courtesy  the 
brothers  replied  promptly:  "We  don't 
know  what  it  is.  If  it  is  a  patent-medicine, 
apply  at  any  apothecary  shop  ;  if  it  is  a 
vegetable,  we  do  not  raise  it,  but  we  have 
a  fine  line  of  parsley  we  can  send  you  if 
there  is  any  immediate  hurry." 

I  suppose  I  ought  not  to  give  the  broth 
ers  away  by  printing  their  message  of  re 
ply,  but  it  seems  to  me  to  be  so  interest- 
156 


IIENRYK    8IENKIEWICZ 

ing  that  I  may  hope  to  be  forgiven  if  I 
have  erred. 

I  next  turned  to  the  hook -shops,  but 
even  there  I  was  puzzled.  Most  of  the 
booksellers  spoke  French ;  and  while  1  a  in 
tolerably  familiar  with  the  idiom  of  the 
boulevards,  I  do  not  speak  it  fluently,  and 
was"  utterly  at  a  loss  to  know  what  Quo 
Vadis  might  be  in  that  language.  So 
I  asked  for  a  copy  of  With  Fire  and 
Sword. 

"Avez-vous  Avec  Feu  ct  Sabre?"  I 
asked  of  the  courteous  salesman. 

It  may  have  been  my  accent,  or  it  may 
have  been  his  stupidity.  In  any  event, 
he  did  not  seem  to  understand  me,  so  I 
changed  the  book,  and  asked  for  The 
Children  of  the  Soil. 

"N'importe,"  said  I.  "  Avez-vous  Les 
Enfantsdela  Terre?" 

"  Excuse  me,  madame,"  he  replied,  in 
English,  "but  what  do  you  want,  any 
how  ?" 

"I  want  to  know  where  —  er  —  where 
the  author  of  Quo  Vadis  lives." 
157 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"  Oh  !"  said  he.  "  I  did  not  quite  un 
derstand  you.  It  is  so  long  since  I  was  in 
Boston  that  my  American  French  is  a 
trifle  weak.  If  you  will  take  the  blue 
trolley-car  that  goes  up  Ujazdowska  Ave 
nue,  and  ask  the  conductor  to  let  you  out 
at  the  junction  of  the  Krakowskie  Przed- 
miescie  and  the  Nowy  Swiat,  the  gen 
darme  on  the  corner  will  be  able  to  direct 
you  thither/7 

"Great  Heavens!"  I  cried.  "Would 
you  mind  writing  that  down  ?" 

He  was  a  very  agreeable  young  man, 
and  consented.  It  is  from  his  memo 
randum  that  I  have  copied  the  names  he 
spoke  with  such  ease,  and  if  it  so  happens 
that  I  have  got  them  wrong,  it  is  his  fault, 
and  not  mine. 

"One  more  thing  before  I  go,"  said  I, 
folding  up  the  memorandum  and  shoving 
it  into  the  palm  of  my  hand  through  the 
opening  in  my  glove.  "When  I  get  to 
— er — the  author  of  Quo  Vadis's  house, 
whom  shall  I  ask  for  ?" 

I  fear  the  young  man  thought  I  was 
158 


IIENRYK    SIENKIEWICZ 

mad.     He   eyed    me    suspiciously   for  a 
moment. 

"  That  all  depends  upon  whom  you 
wish  to  see,"  he  said. 

"  I  want  to  see — er — him,"  said  I. 

"Then  ask  for  him/'  he  replied.  "It 
is  always  well,  when  calling,  to  ask  for  the 
person  one  wishes  to  see.  If  you  desired 
to  call  upon  Mrs.  Brown -Jones,  for  in 
stance,  it  would  be  futile  to  go  to  her 
house  and  ask  for  Mrs.  Pink -Smith,  or 
Mrs.  Greene-Robinson.'' 

" I  know  that,"  said  I.  "But  what's 
his  name  ?" 

The  young  man  paled  visibly.  He  now 
felt  certain  that  I  was  an  escaped  lunatic. 

"I  mean,  how  do  you  pronounce  it  ?"  I 
hastened  to  add. 

"  Oh  !"  he  replied,  with  a  laugh,  and 
visibly  relieved.  "Oh,  that!  Why,Sienk- 
iewicz,  of  course  !  It  is  frequently  trou 
blesome  to  those  who  are  not  familiar 
with  the  Polish  language.  It  is  pro 
nounced  Sienkiewicz.  S-i-e-n-k,  Sienk, 
i-e,  ie,  w-i-c-z,  wicz— Sienkiewicz." 
159 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

And  so  I  left  him,,  no  wiser  than  be 
fore.  He  did  it  so  fluently  and  so  rapidly 
that  I  failed  to  catch  the  orthoepic  curves 
involved  in  this  famous  name. 

Armed  with  the  slip  of  paper  he  had  so 
kindly  handed  me,  I  sought  out  and  found 
the  trolley-car ;  conveyed  by  signs  rather 
than  by  word  of  mouth  to  the  conductor 
where  I  wished  to  alight;  discovered  the 
gendarme,,  who  turned  out  to  be  a  born 
policeman,  and  was  therefore  an  Irish 
man,  who  escorted  me  without  more  ado 
to  the  house  in  which  dwelt  the  man  for 
whom  I  was  seeking. 

" Is— er — the  head  of  the  house  in  ?"  I 
asked  of  the  maid  who  answered  my  sum 
mons.  I  spoke  in  French,  and  this  time 
met  with  no  difficulty.  The  maid  had 
served  in  America,  and  understood  me  at 
once. 

"Yes,  ma'm,"  she  replied,  and  imme 
diately  ushered  me  into  the  author's  den, 
where  I  discovered  the  great  man  himself 
scolding  his  secretary. 

"  I  cannot  understand  why  you  are  so 
160 


ASKED   A   POLICEMAN 


1IENRYK    SIENKIEWICZ 

careless,"  he  was  saying  as  I  entered.  "In 
spite  of  all  my  orders,  repeatedly  given, 
you  will  not  dot  your  jays  or  cross  your 
ells.  If  you  do  not  take  greater  care  I 
shall  have  to  get  some  one  else  who  will. 
Write  this  letter  over  again." 

Then  he  looked  up,  and  perceiving  me, 
rose  courteously,  and,  much  to  my  sur 
prise,  observed  in  charming  English  : 

"Miss  Witherup,  I  presume  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  I,  grasping  his  proffered 
hand.  "How  did  you  know  ?" 

"I  was  at  the  De  Keszkes'  when  your 
telegram  reached  there  yesterday,"  he  ex 
plained.  "We  thought  you  would  be 
amused  by  the  answer  we  sent  you." 

"  Oh  !"  said  I,  seeing  that  I  had  been 
made  the  victim  of  a  joke.  "It  wasn't 
polite,  was  it  ?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know/*'  he  replied.  "It 
was  inspired  by  our  confidence  in  your 
American  alertness.  We  were  sure  you 
would  be  able  to  find  me,  anyhow,  and  we 
thought  we'd  indulge  in  a  little  humor, 
that  was  all." 

L  161 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"  Ah  !"  I  said,  smiling,  to  show  my  for 
giveness.  "Well,  you  were  right;  and 
now  that  I  have  found  you,  tell  me,  do 
you  write  or  dictate  your  stories  ?" 

"I  dictate  them,"  he  said. 

"  Wonderful !"  said  I.  "  Can  you  really 
speak  all  those  dreadful  Polish  words  ? 
They  are  so  long  and  so  full  of  unex 
pected  consonants  in  curious  juxtaposi 
tion  that  they  suggest  barb-wire  rather 
than  literature  to  the  average  American 
mind/' 

I  had  a  sort  of  sneaking  idea  that  he 
would  find  in  juxtaposition  a  word  to 
match  any  of  his  own,  and  I  spoke  it  with 
some  pride.  He  did  not  seem  to  notice  it, 
however,  and  calmly  responded  : 

"  One  gets  used  to  everything,  Miss 
Witherup.  I  have  known  men  who  could 
speak  Russian  so  sweetly  that  you'd  never 
notice  how  full  of  jays  the  language  is," 
said  he.  "And  I  have  heard  Englishmen 
say  that  after  ten  years'  residence  in  the 
United  States  they  got  rather  to  like  the 
dialect  of  you  New-Yorkers,  and  in  some 
162 


IIENRYK    SIENKIEWICZ 

cases  to  speak   it  with   some   degree  of 
fluency  themselves." 

"What  is  your  favorite  novel,  Mr. — 


"Sienkiewicz,"  he  said,  smiling  over 
my  hesitation. 

"Thanks,"  said  I,  gratefully.  "But 
never  mind  that.  I  have  a  toothache, 
anyhow,  and  if  you  don't  mind  I  won't—" 

"Don't  mention  it,"  he  said. 

"  I  won't,"  I  answered.  "  What  is  your 
favorite  novel  ?" 

"  Quo  Vadis,"  he  replied,  promptly,  and 
without  any  conceit  whatever.  He  was 
merely  candid. 

"I  don't  mean  of  your  own.  I  mean  of 
other  people's,"  said  I. 

"  Oh  !"  said  he.  "  I  didn't  understand  ; 
still,  my  answer  must  be  the  same.  My 
favorite  novel  in  Polish  is,  of  course, 
my  own;  but  of  the  novels  that  others 
have  published,  I  think  Quo  Vadis,  by 
Jeremiah  Curtin,  is  my  favorite.  Of 
course  it  is  only  a  translation,  but  it  is 
good." 

163 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

I  did  not  intend  to  be  baffled,  however, 
so  I  persisted. 

"Very  well,  Mr. — er  —  You,"  said  I. 
"What  is  your  favorite  novel  in  Chi 
nese  ?" 

"My  favorite  novel  has  not  yet  been 
translated  into  Chinese/'  he  replied, 
calmly,  and  I  had  to  admit  myself  de 
feated. 

"Do  you  like  Vanity  Fair?"  I  asked. 

"  I  have  never  been  there,"  said  he, 
simply. 

"What  do  you  think  of  Pickwick  ?"  I 
asked. 

"That  is  a  large  question,"  he  replied, 
with  some  uneasiness,  I  thought.  "But 
as  far  as  my  impressions  go,  I  think  he 
was  guilty." 

I  passed  the  matter  over. 

"Are  you  familiar  with  American  liter 
ature  ?"  I  asked. 

"Somewhat,"  said  he.  "I  have 
watched  the  popular  books  in  your 
country,  and  have  read  some  of  them." 

"And  what  books  are  they?"  I  asked. 
164 


IIENRYK    SIENKIEWICZ 

(<  Well,  Quo  Vadis  and  TJie  Prisoner  of 
Zenda,"  he  replied.  "They  are  both  ex 
cellent." 

"  I  suppose  you  never  read  Conan 
Doyle,"  I  put  in,  with  some  sarcasm.  A 
man  who  is  familiar  with  what  is  popular 
in  American  literature  ought  to  have  read 
Conan  Doyle. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "I  have  read  Conan 
Doyle.  Fve  read  it  through  three  times, 
but  I  think  Dr.  Holmes  did  better  work 
than  that.  His  Autograph  on  the  Break 
fast  Talk  was  a  much  better  novel  than 
Conan  Doyle,  and  his  poem,  '  The  Charge 
of  the  Light  Brigade/  is  a  thing  to  be 
remembered.  Still,  I  liked  Conan  Doyle," 
he  added. 

"  Everybody  does,"  I  said. 

"Naturally.  It  is  a  novel  that  sug 
gests  life,  blood,  insight,  and  all  that," 
said  my  host.  "  But  of  all  the  books  you 
Americans  have  written  the  best  is  Mr. 
Thackeray's  estimate  of  your  American 
boulevardier.  It  was  named,  if  I  remem 
ber  rightly,  Tommie  Fadden.  I  read  that 
165 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

with  much  interest,  and  I  do  not  think 
that  Mr.  Thackeray  ever  did  anything  bet 
ter,  although  his  story  of  Jane  Eyre  was 
very  good  indeed.  Fadden  was  such  a 
perfect  representation  of  your  successful 
American,  and  in  reading  it  one  can  pict 
ure  to  one's  self  all  the  peculiar  qualities 
of  your  best  society.  Really,  I  am  grate 
ful  to  Mr.  Thackeray  for  his  Tommie  Fad- 
den,  and  when  you  return  to  New  York  I 
hope  you  will  tell  him  so,  with  my  com 
pliments." 

I  looked  at  my  watch  and  observed  that 
the  hour  was  growing  late. 

"  I  am  returning  to  Paris,"  said  I,  "  so 
I  have  very  little  time  left.  Still,  I  wish 
to  ask  you  two  questions.  First,  did  you 
find  it  hard  to  make  a  name  for  yourself  ?" 

"Very,"  said  he.  "It  has  taken  six 
teen  hours  a  day  for  twenty  years." 

"Then  why  didn't  you  choose  an  easier 
name,  like  Lang,  or  Johnson  ?"  I  asked. 

"  What  is  your  other  question  ?"  he 
said,  in  response.  "  When  I  make  a  name, 
I  make  a  name  that  will  be  remembered. 
166 


"ONE   MUST   BE   1MKODUCED 


HENRYK    SIENKIEWICZ 

Sienkiewicz  will  be  remembered,  whether 
it  can  be  pronounced  without  rehearsal 
or  not.  What  is  your  other  question  ?" 

"Are  you  going  to  read  from  your  own 
works  in  America,  or  not  ?  Dr.  Doyle, 
Dr.  Watson,  Anthony  Hope,  Matthew  Ar 
nold,  and  Richard  Le  Gallienne  have  done 
it.  How  about  yourself  ?"'  I  said. 

Mr.  Sienkiewicz  sighed. 

"  I  wanted  to,  but  I  can't/'  said  he. 
"  Nobody  will  have  me." 

"  Nonsense,"  said  I.  "  Have  you  ? 
They'll  all  have  you." 

"  But,"  he  added,  "  how  can  I  ?  One 
must  be  introduced,  and  how  can  chair 
men  of  the  evening  introduce  me  ?" 

"  They  have  intelligence,"  said  I.  And 
some  of  them  have,  so  I  was  quite 
right. 

"Yes,  but  they  have  no  enunciation  or 
memory,"  said  he.  "  I  can  explain  for 
ever  the  pronunciation  of  my  name,  but 
your  American  chairman  can  never  re 
member  how  it  is  pronounced.  I  shall 
not  go." 

167 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

And  so  I  departed  from  the  house  of 
Mr.  Sienkiewicz. 

I  can't  really  see  why,  when  he  was 
making  a  name  for  himself,  he  did  not 
choose  one  that  people  outside  of  his  own 
country  could  speak  occasionally  without 
wrecking  their  vocal  chords  — one  like 
Boggs,  for  instance. 


GENERAL  WEYLEK 


GEXEKAL  WEYLEB 


UPOX  returning  to  my  London  lodgings 
I  was  greatly  rejoiced  to  find  awaiting  me 
there  a  cable  message  from  the  War  De 
partment  at  Washington,  saying  that  if  I 
would  visit  General  Weyler  at  Madrid, 
and  secure  from  him  a  really  frank  ex 
pression  of  his  views  concerning  our  Span 
ish  imbroglio,  the  President  would  be  very 
glad  to  give  me  a  commission  as  First 
Assistant  Vivandiere  to  the  army  of  the 
Philippines,  with  rank  of  Captain.  I  saw 
at  once  that  in  endeavoring  to  secure  an 
interview  with  this  particular  celebrity  I 
ran  risks  far  greater  than  any  I  had  yet 
encountered — greater  even  than  those  in 
volved  in  my  visit  to  Mr.  Caine  at  his 
171 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

Manx  home.  It  is  my  custom,  however, 
to  go  wherever  duty  may  call,  and  inas 
much  as  my  sex  has,  since  the  days  of 
Joan  of  Arc,  secured  military  recognition 
nowhere  except  in  the  ranks  of  the  Salva 
tion  Army,  I  resolved  to  accept  the  com 
mission,  and  notified  the  War  Depart 
ment  accordingly.  Fortunately  my  style 
of  beauty  is  of  the  Spanish  type,  and,  fur 
thermore,  when  at  boarding-school,  many 
years  ago,  in  Brooklyn,  I  had  studied  the 
Spanish  tongue,  so  that  disguise  was  not 
difficult.  I  had  seen  Carmencita  dance 
at  a  private  residence  in  New  York,  and 
had  therefore  some  slight  knowledge  of 
how  a  fall-fledged  senorita  should  enter 
a  room,  so  that,  on  the  whole,  I  went  to 
Madrid  tolerably  confident  that  I  could 
beard  the  great  Spanish  lion  in  his  den, 
and  escape  unscathed. 

Purchasing  a  lace  mantilla  and  a  scar 
let  scarf  about  eight  feet  long,  my  feet 
covered  with  red  slippers,  and  a  slight 
suggestion  of  yellow  silk  hosiery  peeping 
from  beneath  a  satin  skirt  of  the  length 
172 


"A     RATHER     STUNNING     BANDEKILLO 
OPENED  THE   DOOR" 


GENERAL    WEYLKJI 

proscribed  by  the  rainy  -  day  club,  and 
armed  with  a  pack  of  cards  and  a  pair  of 
castanets,  I  ventured  forth  upon  my  per 
ilous  mission.  Nothing  of  moment  oc 
curred  on  the  journey.  I  did  not  don  my 
Spanish  dress  until  I  had  left  England 
behind  —  indeed,  I  had  reached  the  Pyr 
enees  before  I  arrayed  myself  in  my  cos 
tume,  although  I  was  most  anxious  to  do 
so.  It  was,  after  all,  so  fetching. 

Once  in  Spain  I  had  no  difficulty  at  all, 
and  in  fact  made  myself  very  popular  with 
the  natives  by  telling  most  charming  fort 
unes  for  them,  and  dancing  the  armadil 
lo  and  opadildock  with  a  verve  which 
pleased  them  and  surprised  even  myself. 
I  have  always  known  myself  to  be  a  re 
sourceful  creature,  but  I  had  never  dream 
ed  that  among  my  reserve  accomplishments 
the  agility  and  grace  of  a  premiere  danseuse 
could  be  numbered. 

It  was  Friday  evening  when  I  reached 

Madrid,   and   Saturday   morning,    bright 

and  early,  I  called  at  General  Weyler's 

house.       A    rather    stunning    banderillo 

173 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

opened  the  front  door  and  inquired  my 
business. 

"Tell  General  Weyler,"  said  I,  "that 
Seiiorita  Gypsy  del  Castillanos  de  Sierra  de 
Santiago,  of  Newark,  New  Jersey,  wishes 
to  speak  with  him  on  affairs  of  national 
importance." 

I  had  resolved  upon  a  bold  stroke,  and 
it  worked  to  a  charm.  The  General,  who 
is  mortally  afraid  of  assassins,  had  been 
listening  from  his  usual  hiding-place  be 
hind  the  hat-rack.  Pushing  the  hat-rack 
from  before  him,  he  stepped  out  into  the 
hall,  and,  standing  between  me  and  the 
door,  inquired  threateningly  if  Newark, 
New  Jersey,  was  not  one  of  the  dependen 
cies  of  the  United  States.  I  answered  him 
in  fluent  Spanish  that  it  was,  told  him 
that  I  had  lived  there  through  no  fault 
of  my  own  for  three  years,  had  had  to  fly 
before  a  mob  because  of  my  pro-Spanish 
sympathies,  and,  travelling  night  and  day, 
had  come  to  lay  before  him  a  complete 
sketch  of  the  fortifications  of  Newark,  to 
gether  with  the  ground-plan  of  Harlem, 
174 


IN    HIDING 


GENERAL  WEYLER 

which,  as  I  informed  him.  he  would  have 
to  take  before  he  could  possibly  hope  to 
place  Washington  in  a  state  of  siege.  I 
also  gave  him  a  chart  showing  by  what 
waterways  a  Spanish  fleet  could  approach 
and  reduce  Niagara  Falls  to  ashes  —  a 
blow  which  would  strike  England  and  the 
United  States  with  equal  force,  without 
necessarily  altering  the  status  quo  ante 
with  Great  Britain. 

The  General,  like  the  quick-witted  sol 
dier  that  he  is,  became  interested  at  once. 
The  lowering  aspect  of  his  brow  cleared 
like  the  summer  clouds  before  an  August 
sun,  and,  with  an  urbanity  which  I  had 
not  expected,  invited  me  to  step  into  his 
sanctum.  I  accepted  with  alacrity.  I 
cannot  say  that  it  was  a  pleasant  room  ;  it 
was  in  military  disorder.  Machetes  and 
murderous -looking  pistols  were  every 
where,  and  the  chair  to  which  I  was 
assigned  was  a  pleasant  little  relic  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  was  so  arranged  that  had 
the  General  so  wished,  the  arms  holding 
hidden  iron  spikes  would  fold  about  me 
175 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

at  any  moment  and  give  me  a  hug  I  should 
not  forget  in  a  hurry.  Added  to  this  was 
a  series  of  Kodak  pictures  of  all  the  atroci 
ties  of  which  he  was  guilty  while  in  Ha 
vana.  These  were  framed  in  one  massive 
oaken  frieze  running  from  one  end  of  the 
room  to  the  other,  and  labelled  on  a  gilt 
tablet  with  black  letters.  "Snap  Shots  I 
Have  Snapped,  or  Pleasant  Times  in 
Cuba." 

This  demonstrates  that  Weyler  is  one  of 
those  rarely  fortunate  people  who  take 
pleasure  and  pride  in  the  profession  they 
are  called  upon  to  follow. 

"  General,"  said  I,  once  we  were  seated, 
"did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  if  you  were 
two  feet  shorter,  and  clean-shaven,  with  a 
different  nose  and  a  smaller  mouth,  and  a 
shorter  chin  and  a  bigger  brow,  and  less 
curve  to  your  arms  when  you  walk,  you 
would  resemble  Napoleon  Bonaparte  ?'' 

The  General  was  evidently  pleased  by 
my  compliment. 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?"  said  he,  with  a 
smile  which  absolutely  froze  my  soul. 
176 


GENERAL    WEYLER 

"I  do,"  I  said,  meekly,  and  then  I 
began  to  weep.  I  was  really  unnerved, 
and  began  to  wish  I  had  never  accepted 
the  commission.  lie  was  so  frightfully 
cold-blooded,  and  toyed  with  a  stiletto  of 
razor -like  sharpness  so  carelessly  that  I 
was  truly  terrified. 

"Don't  cry,  Gypsy,"  he  said.  "War 
is  a  terrible  thing,  but  we  will  beat  those 
Yankee  pigs  yet."  This,  of  course,  was 
before  peace  was  declared. 

The  remark  nerved  me  up  again.  He 
believed  in  me,  and  that  was  half  the 
battle. 

"Oh,  I  hope  so,  General,"  I  sobbed. 
"  But  how  ?  Poor  old  Spain  has  nothing 
to  fight  with." 

"Spain  has  me,  seflorita  !"  he  cried, 
passionately.  "And  I  single-handed  will 
give  them  battle." 

"But  you  do  not  know  the  country, 
General,"  said  I.  "  Don't  risk  your  life, 
I  beg  of  you— our  only  hope  !  I  haven't 
a  doubt  that  in  a  fight  with  pigs  you  will 
win  ;  but,  General,  the  United  States  is  so 
M  177 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

vast,  so  complicated ;  it  is  full  of  pit 
falls  !" 

I  could  see  that  I  had  him  worked  up. 

"Seilorita,"  he  cried.,  "fear  not  for 
Weyler.  Think  you  that  I  do  not  know 
America!  Ha-ha!  I  know  its  every 
inch.  And  let  me  tell  you  this  :  it  is 
because  I  have  devoted  hour  after  hour, 
clay  after  day,  night  after  night,  to  the 
study  of  the  United  States,  and,  best  of 
all,  they  do  not  suspect  it  over  there. 
Why  ?  Because  of  my  strategy !  When  I 
wished  to  learn  where  was  situated  the 
city  of  Ohio  did  I  send  to  New  York 
for  a  map  ?  Not  I.  I  knew  that  if  I 
bought  a  map  in  New  York,  the  house 
of  which  I  bought  it  would  advertise  me 
as  one  of  their  patrons.  I  am  too  old  a 
Spaniard  to  be  caught  like  that."  Here 
his  voice  sank  to  a  whisper,  and,  lean 
ing  forward,  he  added,  impressively:  "I 
sent  for  a  railway  time  -  table.  Figures 
express  to  my  mind  what  lines  or  maps 
could  not  express  to  others.  What  did 
I  learn  from  the  New  York  Central 
178 


GENERAL    WEYLKi: 

time  -  table,  for  instance  ?  This  :  Ohio- 
is  twelve  hours  from  New  York.  Good, 
say  you  —  but  what  does  that  mean? 
Travelling  at  the  rate  of  four  miles  an 
hour,  Ohio  is  just  forty-eight  miles  from 
New  York  city!  Forty -eight  miles! 
Pah  !  By  forced  marches  our  troops 
could  cover  that  in  ten  days." 

The  General  snapped  his  fingers. 

"But  why  Ohio,  General  ?"  I  asked. 

"  The  most  important  city  in  the  Ameri 
can  Union,"  he  replied.  "Ohio  captured, we 
have  the  home  of  McKinley.  Ohio  capt 
ured,  we  have  captured  eighty  per  cent,  of 
the  Yankees'  public  officials.  Your  Minis 
ter  of  State  comes  from  there  ;  all  the  vocal 
powers  of  the  Senate ;  all  their  political 
resource.  Ah  !"  he  cried,  ecstatically, 
rubbing  his  hands  together,  "they  little 
know  me  !  Let  them  destroy  our  navy. 
Let  them  take  the  Philippines.  Let  them 
blockade  Cuba.  Let  them  do  what  they 
please.  Spain  will  wait.  Spain  will  wait 
a  day,  a  week,  a  month,  a  year,  a  decade, 
a  century— but  when  least  expected,  a 
179 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

new  fleet,  built  secretly,  a  new  army,  re 
cruiting  now  on  the  D.  Q."  (this  is  a  trans 
lation)  "will  dash  into  New  York  Har 
bor,  up  the  Missouri  Eiver,  through  the 
Karitan  Canal,  and  Ohio  will  lie  at  our 
mercy." 

"And  then  ?"  said  I,  overwhelmed. 

"We'll  hold  Ohio  until  the  pig  gives 
back  the  Philippines  and  Cuba,"  said  the 
General,  suavely. 

"Now,  General,"  said  I,  pursing  my  lips, 
"your  plan  is  a  mighty  good  one,  and  I 
hope  you'll  try  to  put  it  through.  But  let 
me  tell  you  one  thing — your  time-tables 
have  misled  you.  In  the  first  place,  any 
part  of  Ohio  worth  talking  of  is  eighteen 
hours  from  New  York  by  rail,  not  twelve. 
New  York  Harbor  is  mined  all  the  way 
from  Fortress  Monroe  to  the  Golden  Gate ; 
and  you  can't  get  to  Ohio  by  a  dash  up 
the  Missouri  River  and  the  Raritan  Canal, 
because  those  two  waterways  above  Los 
Angeles  are  not  navigable.  It  is  very  evi 
dent  that  you,  in  studying  a  railroad  map, 
have  forgotten  that  they  are  designed  to 
180 


GENERAL    WEYLER 

advertise  railroads,  and  have  no  geographi 
cal  significance  whatsoever." 

"  Are  you  sure  ?"  he  asked. 

"Perfectly,"  said  I.  "I  have  lived  in 
the  country,  as  I  have  told  you,  for  three 
years,  and  I  know  what  I  am  talking 
about." 

"Then  what  shall  I  do  to  attack  Ohio  ?" 
he  demanded. 

"Well,"  said  I,  "the  question  is  not 
easy  to  answer,  but  I  think  if  you  would 
first  capture  Hoboken — " 

"Yes,"  he  said,  making  a  note  of  my 
suggestion. 

"And  then  take  your  transports, 
guarded  by  your  fighting -ships,  out  as 
far  as  Railway — "  I  continued. 

"I  have  it  here,"  said  he,  putting  it 
down. 

"Land  your  troops  there,  and  send 
150,000  south  to  Bangor,  and  100,000 
north  to  Louisville,  Kentucky,  with  a 
mere  handful  of  sharp-shooters  to  overawe 
the  Seminoles  at  Seattle,  and  then  let 
these  troops  close  in  " — said  I. 
181 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

"I  understand,"  said  he,  enthusiastic 
ally. 

"If  you  will  do  that/'  I  put  in,  "you'll 
come  as  near  to  capturing  Ohio  as  any 
man  can  come." 

The  General  rose  up  and  excitedly  paced 
the  floor. 

"Sefiorita!"  he  said,  at  length,  "you 
have  done  your  country  a  service.  But 
for  you  my  plans  would  all  have  fallen 
through,  because  based  upon  the  un 
reliable  information  put  forth  upon  an 
ignorant  people  by  corrupt  railway  offi 
cials.  I  have  studied  with  care  every 
railway  map  issued  in  the  United  States 
for  ten  years  past.  I  had  supposed  that 
Ohio  could  be  reached  by  way  of  the 
Missouri  and  the  Raritan.  I  had  supposed 
that  to  bring  about  the  fall  of  Nebraska 
where  their  immortal  General — for  I  ad- 
mit  that  those  pigs  have  occasionally 
produced  a  man — O'Bryan  lives,  it  could 
be  attacked  by  a  land  and  sea  force 
simultaneously,  should  the  land  forces 
approach  the  city  from  the  Chicago  side, 
182 


GENERAL    WEYLER 

and  the  fleet  pass  the  forts  at  Galves- 
ton  and  sail  up  Chesapeake  Bay  without 
further  molestation.  I  see,  from  what 
you  have  told  me,  that  these  maps  uro 
falsus  in  uno  anyhow.  I  am  wondering 
now  if  they  are  i\vi  falsus  in  omnibus." 

"  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  they  were 
even  falsus  in  trolleybus,"  I  put  in,  with 
a  feeble  attempt  at  humor.  "Certainly 
they  have  misled  you,  General." 

"But,"  he  cried,  angrily,  "I  am  not. 
to  be  thwarted.  My  ultimate  idea  re 
mains  unchanged.  On  to  Ohio  is  my 
watchword.  When  that  falls,  the  rest 
will  be  easy.  Thanks  to  the  infor 
mation  you  have  given,  I  now  know 
how  it  may  be  done,  and  I  assure  you, 
sefiorita,  that  you  will  not  be  forgotten 
in  the— ah — the — "  here  his  sallow  feat 
ures  grew  animated,  and  a  flush  of  real 
pleasure  crossed  them  as  he  finished — 
"  in  the — ah — reorganization." 

"There  is  to  be  a  reorganization, 
then  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered.   "That  is  certain, 
183 


PEEPS    AT    PEOPLE 

and,  on  the  whole,  it  is  good  that  there 
is  to  be.  People  are  always  pleased 
with  that  which  is  novel,  and  up  to  this 
time  there  have  been  no  kings  on  the 
throne  bearing  the  name  of  Valeriano. 
/  think  Valeriano  the  First  will  make  a 
very  pretty  autograph.  Don't  you  ?" 

"Indeed  I  do!"  I  cried.  "Write  one 
for  me,  won't  you  ?" 

But  the  sagacious  warrior  merely  winked 
his  eye,  and  by  a  swish  of  his  machete 
courteously  gave  me  to  understand  that 
the  audience  was  over. 

I  immediately  cabled  to  Washington 
the  results  of  my  interview,  and,  by  the 
time  I  got  back  to  London,  had  the  pleas 
ure  of  reading  in  the  newspapers  that  the 
United  States  Senate  had  confirmed  my 
appointment  of  First  Assistant  Vivandiere 
to  the  Department  of  Manila,  with  the 
rank  of  captain,  for  services  rendered, 
wherefore  I  have  given  up  the  pleasant 
task  of  interviewing  celebrities  for  the 
sterner  duties  of  war. 

I  was  glad  also  to  learn  that  the  Admin- 
184 


GENERAL    WEYLER 

istration,  acting  upon  my  advices,  had 
taken  steps  to  make  Ohio  impregnable  by 
sea  in  any  event.  The  Gibraltar  of  Ameri 
can  politics  should  not  be  allowed  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  a  ruthless  Castilian  like 
Weyler,  and,  frankly,  whatever  else  our 
government  will  permit,  I  do  not  think  it 
will  ever  do  this,  and  as  long  as  we  possess 
Ohio  we  need  have  no  fear  that  we  shall 
be  governed  by  foreign  people. 


THE     END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY, 
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MAY  12 


JUNS7 

ilL         1975 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


